Extremely Fierce Battles’ As Kyiv Seeks To Advance

Extremely fierce battles” are raging in parts of Ukraine as Kyiv’s forces continue their counter-offensive, the country’s deputy defence minister says.

Hanna Maliar wrote on Telegram that Ukrainian forces had managed to advance near Bakhmut in the east and Zaporizhzhia in the south.

But she conceded Russian forces were mounting a stiff defence in some areas.

Her comments come after another night of Russian missiles, and drones strike on cities across Ukraine.

Russia has stepped up its bombing campaign in recent weeks, despite President Vladimir Putin admitting that his forces are suffering from a “shortage of missiles and drones.”

In the early hours of Thursday morning, overnight attacks hit industrial facilities in the Dnipropetrovsk region, according to Ukraine’s army. Regional military spokesperson, Serhiy Bratchuk said a series of drone attacks on the Black Sea region of Odesa were repelled by air defence systems.

The previous day, a strike on a warehouse and a shopping centre in the city of Odesa had killed three people.

Kyiv’s much-anticipated advance has been long in the making, and Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of increasing strikes in recent weeks to deflect attention from the offensive.

The Ukrainians say their troops have recaptured seven settlements and at least 90 sq km, 35 sq miles, since starting their counter-offensive.

Street-By-Street Battle
Ms Maliar wrote on Telegram that Ukrainian troops had advanced around the city of Bakhmut, long the centre of a grinding and bloody street-by-street battle with Russian forces.

She said soldiers advanced by 200m to 500m towards the city, as well as advancing 300m to 500m in the southern Zaporizhzhia province.

But she conceded that the counter-offensive had already led to some “extremely fierce battles,” as Ukrainian forces try to break through well established Russian defensive lines.

Senior Western officials have warned against the idea that Russian forces will simply “melt away” in the face of Ukrainian attacks, adding that Kyiv’s gains had already been “costly.”

“Russian forces have generally put up a good defence from their well-prepared, defended positions and had been falling back between tactical lines,” the sources said.

Costly
“This ‘manoeuvre defence approach’ is proving challenging for the Ukrainians and also costly to attacking forces. Hence, the advance at the moment has been slow,” they observed, adding that it was too soon to say how effective Ukraine’s offensive has been.

“This was never going to be without risk,” they said. “What we’re seeing is not unexpected. It’s difficult, and it is going to be challenging for Ukrainians. What we have seen, though, is they’ve continued to push through where they have had losses and then continue to advance. So overall, it is going in the right direction.”

Both sides have reported mounting casualties among their opponents, which can not be independently verified.

BBC/Shakirat Sadiq