Ukrainian officials reported missile strikes and artillery fire in several areas as Russian forces focused their military efforts on the front lines in the separatist Lugansk region. One of the places attacked was the city of Lviv, located in the westernmost part of Ukraine and used as an escape route for war refugees. The municipality was the target of missile bombardment. There is no information about deaths.
“The Russians are gathering equipment and manpower close to Severodonetsk and preparing to attack it,” Serhiy Hayday, head of Lugansk’s regional military administration, said this morning.
Severodonetsk is one of several industrial cities that have been bombed for weeks amid efforts by the eastern Russian army to tear down the Ukrainian defenses. Hayday said the city’s chemical factory and skyscrapers were hit.
Also, according to the Ukrainian authority, 11 skyscrapers were hit in the city’s new and old neighborhoods. In many of these buildings, apartment fires broke out. “Several settlements south and west of Severodonetsk were also hit, including Vrubivka and Komyshuvaka,” Hayday said. Said.
In the western part of Lviv, close to the Polish border, the head of the regional military administration of Lviv, Maksym Kozytskyi, said that four enemy missiles hit a military infrastructure facility in the Yavoriv district, close to the Polish border. “The plant was completely destroyed,” Kozytskyi said.
Counter-offensive in Kharkov
Despite the new attacks, Ukraine said it carried out a counterattack in Kharkov, the country’s second-largest city, and managed to retake territory previously held by Russian troops. However, Ukrainian officials gave little detail on the situation in the region.
According to official communiqués, Ukraine’s aim here is to cut off the Russian supply lines of its forces trying to advance into the Donetsk region.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces said today only that “enemy units in the Kharkov direction are not engaged in active hostilities.”
The head of Kharkiv’s regional military administration, Oleh Syniehubov, said that Ukrainian troops are constantly strengthening their positions and pushing military personnel from the borders of the city to the borders of Russia. “The north and northeast directions are the warmest; there are active hosts there,” he added. Syniehubov.
He also said that Kharkiv “has been relatively quiet for several days” and that “there have been no bombings in the city itself”. “About 2,000 people return to Kharkiv every day, and this number is increasing day by day,” he said.
More attacks recorded in the south
But further south, several towns were attacked, according to Syniehubov.
“The enemy is constantly checking the positions of our armed forces near Barvinkove, trying to break through, but in vain. The enemy has suffered heavy loss of manpower and equipment.”
The General Staff also said that Russian forces have increased their efforts in this area. “The regrouping of troops continues the offensive against Barvinkove and Sloviansk, the two main targets of Russian forces in the region,” said the General Staff.
On the other hand, Ukraine has reported new airstrikes in northern Ukraine’s Chernihiv and Sumy regions. Dmytro Zhyvytskyy, head of the military administration of the Sumy region, said that rockets and airstrikes damaged border villages overnight, but no casualties.
On the southern front, the Zaporizhzhya regional military administration said the Russians were “digging a trench along the Molokna River” as they continued to bombard towns in the region.
Russia lost a third of its combat forces
Russia may have lost about a third of its military forces in Ukraine since the start of the war on February 24, the UK’s Ministry of Defense said in a bulletin released today. The Russian offensive in the separatist Donbass region, which includes Donetsk and Lugansk, “lost momentum and was significantly delayed,” British intelligence said.
“Despite initial small-scale advances, Russia failed to make significant territorial gains in the past month and has maintained consistently high attrition levels,” the Defense Department said on Twitter.
NATO chief: ‘Ukraine can win the war’
“Ukraine can win this war,” said Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) against Russia. The statement was made by the diplomat today at the Western military alliance meeting in Berlin, Germany.
Stoltenberg, who attended the meeting virtually, said in his speech from Brussels, Belgium, “Russia’s war in Ukraine is not going as Moscow planned. It failed to take Kiev.”
Also at the NATO meeting, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US embassy in Kiev would reopen “very soon”.
Meeting with Ukrainian Minister Blinken
Ukrainian Foreign Ministers Dmytro Kuleba met with the US Secretary of State. Ukraine’s foreign minister posted a photo of the meeting on his Twitter profile and said, “More weapons and other aid to Ukraine is on the way.”
“We agreed to work together to ensure that Ukrainian food exports reach consumers in Africa and Asia,” Kuleba said.
Zelensky demands recognition of Russia as a ‘terrorist state’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video posted on his Facebook page late last night that he had asked the United States to recognize Russia as a “terrorist state” because of its behavior in the war.
According to the Ukrainian leader, the request was made by him during a meeting with Mitch McConnell, the chairman of the Republican minority in the US Senate. At the meeting, Zelensky said, “I look forward to the US support for new sanctions. We also believe that Russia should be officially recognized as a state that supports terrorism.” said.
source: Noticias
