2023-08-29 01:05:00
Ukraine claimed small gains on the southern front. Photo: AFP
Ukraine announced on Monday that it had recaptured a small town on the southern front, where its forces hope to boost confidence in the difficult ongoing counteroffensive against Russian lines that began in June.
“Robotyne has been liberated. Our forces are advancing southeast of Robotyne and south of Mala Tokmachka”Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar told television.
After accumulating military material delivered by its Western partners, Ukraine launched in June its long-awaited counteroffensive against Russian positions strengthened in the past months.
Ukrainian authorities say their progress is slow but sure, and Russia claims that the kyiv counter-offensive is failing.
“Russian forces have committed a considerable amount of materiel, efforts and men to hold defensive positions where Ukrainian forces are penetrating.”
The recovered locality is located in the axis of attack of the cities of Tokmak and Melitopol, occupied by the Russian forces.
The goal of kyiv it consists of breaking the continuity of territories occupied by Moscow in the south and east of the country.
With the capture of Robotyne, the Ukrainian Army hopes to be able to open a gap in the southern front, although to do so it must overcome trenches, anti-tank fortifications and minefields planted by the Russians.
On the eastern front, Ukrainian troops recaptured a square kilometer south of Bakhmut in the last week of fighting. a city captured in May by Moscow.
In turn, local authorities in the Donetsk province, in eastern Ukraine, denounced a Russian attack withn suspected cluster bombs in the city of Toretsk, which ended with the death of a 39-year-old woman and injured at least three.
The injured – a 72 and 73-year-old couple and an 88-year-old woman – were taken to a hospital to receive medical assistance, the Europa Press news agency reported.
“In addition, private residential buildings and several apartments were damaged. A preliminary investigation has been launched in criminal proceedings for violation of the laws and customs of war,” the Donetsk regional prosecutor’s office said on Telegram.
Photo: AFP
For his part, Russia continued its bombing campaign on Mondaywhich killed at least two people in an attack on an industrial facility in the Poltava region of central Ukraine.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a pro-Western think tank, estimated that Russia mobilized significant means to defend the positions it is now ceding, and wondered if Moscow would be able to do the same. with the following defensive lines.
“Russian forces have committed a considerable amount of materiel, efforts and men to hold defensive positions where Ukrainian forces are penetrating,” the ISW said, quoted by the AFP news agency.
“The more Russia loses control of the occupied territories, the faster support for the regime will decline”
For the Ukrainian authorities, each reconquered town deals a blow to the ambitions of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a year and a half after the war broke out on February 24, 2022.
“All of Putin’s legitimacy with the Russian elite stems from the fact that he has not yet lost the war. The more Russia loses control of the occupied territories, the faster support for the regime will decline,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhail Podoliak tweeted.
In parallel, Ukraine struggles to hold its lines against a Russian offensive in the northeast, that has been scratching ground for weeks.
Photo: AFP
Ukraine fears that Russia will launch tens of thousands of men in that axis of attack, to break through the front there and force her to divert from her operations in the south.
Ilia Yevlash, spokesman for the Eastern Command of the Ukrainian army, said last Sunday that Moscow had assembled 45,000 soldiers in the Kupiansk area and another 48,000 near Liman, a little further south.
On Saturday, the British Ministry of Defense said in a report that, in the face of the Ukrainian advances, Russia could try to “recapture the initiative” by multiplying its offensive operations. “Kupiansk-Liman is a potential zone for such a scenario,” she said.
Ukraine keeps up the pressure by also multiplying drone attacks on Russian territory, even reaching Moscow and the annexed Crimean peninsula, a key rearguard for supplying Moscow’s troops.
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