Thirteen people were killed and ten others injured when Ukrainian forces shelled the Russian-held city Donetsk in the east Ukraine, as stated by Denis Pushilin, appointed by Russia to head the region. There is currently no comment from Kyiv on the incident.
According to Alexei Kulemzin, appointed by Russia mayor, Ukrainian forces bombed a busy area where shops and a market are located. Pushilin said emergency services were working at the scene and that experts were also trying to collect fragments of the weapons used in the attack.
Donetsk is one of four Ukrainian regions annexed by Russia last year, a move condemned by most countries at the United Nations General Assembly. Russia does not fully control any of the four regions.
Occupation of a village in Kharkiv
The Russian military said today that it captured a small village in its territory Kharkivin eastern Ukraine, with Kiev forces asserting for their part that the village has “no significance” from a military point of view.
This announcement, however, demonstrates the increased pressure exerted by Moscow's forces on the front in recent weeks. Last Thursday, the Russian army announced that it had captured another small village, Veseloye, in the Donetsk region (east).
“The village of Krakhmalnoye, in the Kharkiv region, was liberated thanks to the operations successfully conducted by the units of the “West” military corps in the Kupyansk zone,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in its daily bulletin on operations in Ukraine.
The community, home to some 45 residents before February 24, 2022, is located 30 kilometers southeast of Kupyansk, which has been the target of attacks by Russian forces for months.
According to a representative of the Ukrainian ground forces, Volodymyr Fitios, who was interviewed today on Ukrainian television, the capture of the village “is of no importance” from a strategic point of view for the front.
“It is about five houses. They were destroyed by the Russians,” he said, assuring that Ukrainian troops had “moved to ready reserve positions,” where they “now continue to defend, preventing the enemy from continuing his advance.”
Faced with these repeated attacks, the Ukrainian authorities, for their part, had earlier in the week ordered the evacuation of 26 communities in the Kharkiv region, where Kupyansk is located, a decision that affected about 3,000 people, including 279 children.
This entire zone was occupied by Russia at the start of the offensive ordered in February 20222 by Vladimir Putin, until a Ukrainian blitzkrieg liberated the area in September of that year, forcing Moscow's troops into a humiliating retreat.
Russia went on the offensive again in the zone this summer of 2023, during which time Ukraine attempted, without success, to launch a major counteroffensive in the Donbass (east) and the south.
Since the fall and after the failure of Ukrainian attempts to recapture these territories, Russian forces have been pushing northeast, in the Kupyansk zone, but also east, especially around the city of Avdiivka.
For its part, Kiev assures that it is holding firm and inflicting significant casualties on the Russians, but it is also pressing its Western allies for its weapons and ammunition needs in order to be able to continue to resist.
Source: News Beast
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