The largest number of attacks by Russian forces was recorded in the Donetsk region, where Ukrainian troops repelled incursions into about a dozen towns and cities, including the critical communications junction of Pakmut, Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement.
About 30 villages and towns in that part of eastern Ukraine were targeted by artillery and shelling by tanks, according to the Ukrainian command.
In a recent daily report, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) indicated that the Russian private military company Wagner Group, owned by oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, may step up its operations in the Pakmut region. Inexplicable for the Russian army in that area.
According to ISW analysts, Prigozhin, who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, will try to expand his role in the war to achieve his own political goals.
While Ukraine’s eastern regions have been the main theater of military operations, Russia has been taking steps to prevent a Ukrainian offensive on its southern flank, from where, last November, its troops were able to withdraw from the only regional capital, the city of Kherson. Control from the start of the campaign.
“On the territory of the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea, enemy units are carrying out engineering works for defensive positions on the Krasnoperekopsk-Zhankoy highway,” Ukrainian civil servants said.
The road begins in the city of Krasnoburgovsk and is located on the isthmus of the Crimean Peninsula, from there it extends 61 kilometers to Zhankoy, within the territory annexed by Russia in 2014, which is the “critical point” in the hypothetical case. Ukrainian forces invaded.
According to the Ukrainian military command, the spirits of Kiev officials are high, especially after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s surprise visit to Washington, “he had a successful reception” and US Representative Joe Biden declared. Sending ‘Patriot’ anti-missile systems to Ukraine, which has long asked for them.
The weapon, according to the Ukrainian military, would reduce the effectiveness of the massive missile strikes that Russia has periodically launched against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure since last October, damaging it by more than 50% and depriving millions of people of electricity, water and access. Heating.
On Thursday, Putin said Russia would find “an antidote” against the ‘patriotic’ systems, insisting they “do not work like the Russian S-300” and describing them as “very old”.
“We will crush them like nuts,” Putin said.
Regarding possible peace talks with Ukraine, Putin noted that “all armed conflicts will end through negotiations in one way or another” and that Moscow has not ruled them out.
“Our aim is not to spin the military conflict further, but to end this war. This is what we want and will aspire to,” the Kremlin leader said, using the word “war” for the first time since the Russian invasion began on February 24.
Already today, the spokesman of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, noted at a press conference the purpose of Putin’s statement and the word “war”, which is banned in the Russian information space to refer to the military campaign in Ukraine.
“Of course, this is first, the end of the special military operation [na Ucrânia)] Achieving the goals proposed by the Russian Federation”, he clarified.
On February 24 of this year, when he announced the start of a military campaign on Ukrainian soil, Putin announced that the objectives were the “militarization” and “decimation” of Ukraine and the protection of the residents of the Donbass.
The next day, the Kremlin leader urged the Ukrainian military to overthrow the Ukrainian president and the country’s military high command.
“I am in my office. We continue to work for victory”, Zelensky said today, a day before the tenth month of the conflict, on the Telegram social network, in which he used the opportunity to confirm his return to the United States.
“Hardcore explorer. Extreme communicator. Professional writer. General music practitioner. Prone to fits of apathy.”