Ukrainian forces are restraining one of Russia’s most powerful offensives since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion on its smaller neighbour, the top commander of Kyiv’s forces said on Saturday.
Russian troops advanced in September at their fastest rate since March, 2022, the month after President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion, according to open-source data. Ukraine in August took part of Russia’s Kursk region.
A member of the Siberian Battalion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ International Legion throws a hand grenade during military exercises, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, at an undisclosed location in Kyiv region, Ukraine on 10th April, 2024. PICTURE: Reuters/Valentyn Ogirenko/File photo
“The Armed Forces of Ukraine are holding back one of the most powerful Russian offensives from launching a full-scale invasion,” General Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
After failing to capture the capital Kyiv early in the war and win a decisive victory, Putin scaled back his war ambitions to taking the Donbas industrial heartland in Ukraine’s east, which covers the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
Donbas has since become the war’s main theatre, where some of biggest battles in Europe for generations have taken place and where thousands of troops on each side have died.
RUSSIAN GUIDED BOMB HITS SUPERMARKET IN UKRAINE’S KHARKIV, FOUR HURT, GOVERNOR SAYS
A Russian guided bomb struck a supermarket on Sunday evening in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, injuring at least four people, Kharkiv Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
Syniehubov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said the supermarket was hit in the Shevchenkivskyi district, near the city centre.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said the supermarket was located next to high-rise residential buildings. Terekhov said an earlier bomb strike had hit a forested area in the city.
Syniehubov, in a separate post on Telegram, also said Russian forces had hit a high-rise apartment building in a small town near Kupiansk, east of Kharkiv, injuring one person. The area has come under increased Russian pressure in recent weeks.
– RON POPESKI and BOGDAN KOCHUBEY/Reuters
On Saturday, Moscow said it has taken two more settlements along the Donbas frontline. In the week of 20th to 27th October alone, Russia captured nearly 200 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory, according to the Russian media group Agentstvo, which analysed Ukrainian open-source maps.
The war is entering what Russian analysts say is its most dangerous phase as Moscow’s forces advance, North Korea sends troops to Russia and the West ponders how the conflict will end.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been travelling the world lobbying NATO countries to allow Kyiv the use of the long-range missiles they have provided to strike targets deep inside Russia.
Ukraine is bracing for what could be the toughest winter of the war after long-range Russian airstrikes destroyed what officials say is about half of its power generating capacity.
