Ukraine said on Thursday it had been forced to cede some territory in the east of the country in the face of a Russian offensive, and the head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) military alliance said Moscow should not be allowed to. win the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this week described the pressure his armed forces were under in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine as “hell”. He spoke of fierce fighting around the town of Avdiivka and the fortified village of Pisky, where Kiev has acknowledged the “partial success” of its Russian enemy in recent days.
The Ukrainian military said on Thursday that Russian forces mounted at least two attacks on Pisky, but that its troops managed to repel them.
Ukraine has spent the past eight years strengthening defensive positions in Pisky, seeing it as a buffer zone against Russian-backed forces controlling the city of Donetsk, about 10km to the southeast.
General Oleksiy Gromov told a news conference that Ukrainian forces had recaptured two villages around the eastern city of Sloviansk but were pushed back towards the town of Avdiivka after being forced to abandon a coal mine considered a key defensive position.
The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed its offensive.
According to the ministry, its forces inflicted heavy losses on Ukrainian forces around Avdiivka and two other locations in Donetsk province, forcing Kiev’s mechanized infantry units to withdraw.
Reuters could not immediately verify the claims by either side.
Video footage released by the Russian Defense Ministry showed Russian rocket launchers in action and tanks advancing and firing at speed across open terrain. It was unclear where they were filmed.
Some unverified reports suggest that Russian-backed forces have reached the outskirts of Pisky.
Provided with sophisticated weapons by the West, Ukraine has also been attacking Russian-backed forces in the area.
Officials in the Russian-backed self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said on Thursday that Ukrainian bombing had killed at least five people and wounded six in the city of Donetsk.
Images on social media showed bodies, some broken, lying on the side of a road in central Donetsk. Blood stained the sidewalk.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukrainian governor of Donetsk, said on Telegram that three civilians had been killed by Russian bombings in Bakhmut, Maryinka and Shevchenko and five were wounded in the last 24 hours.
Eight people were killed and four wounded by Russian artillery shelling of the Donetsk city of Toretsk, he said.
Russia, which denies deliberately targeting civilians, said it plans to take full control of Donetsk province, one of two that make up the industrialized Donbass region, as part of what it calls a “special military operation” to protect its security from the attack. what he calls the unwarranted enlargement of NATO.
Ukraine and the West, which describe Russia’s actions as an imperial-style unprovoked war of aggression, say Russian forces must withdraw to their positions before Feb. soldiers for Ukraine.
Moscow, which regularly speaks of the need for its forces to push deeper into Ukraine, seems unlikely to agree to do so voluntarily.
Source: CNN Brasil
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