In addition to the Russian artillery, fighter jets and helicopters are deployed, the Ukrainian general staff said on Tuesday. The Ukrainian military itself said it had carried out several airstrikes on Russian positions in the south of the country.
Sieverodonetsk has become the main target of the Russian offensive in the Donbass, which includes the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. “Fierce street fighting continues in the city,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his nightly video address. “They outnumber us, they are more powerful.” But Ukrainian forces have “every chance” to fight back, he added. The situation on the ground is changing from hour to hour, the city’s mayor, Olexander Strjuk, said on Ukrainian television.
Russian attacks in the vicinity of Sievjerodonetsk – in the Bakhmut area – were repelled, the general staff said. Further west, Russian troops advanced towards Sloviansk, another strategic target in the Donbass region. The headquarters of the Ukrainian armed forces is stationed in the metropolitan area.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s air force is active in the south. “Ukrainian helicopters struck against accumulations of enemy troops in the Kherson region – and planes against ammunition depots in the Mykolaiv region,” the General Staff said. Ukraine has so far used its air force very little during the war due to Russian air superiority. In the east the situation is still difficult.
There was no information from either side on hostilities around the small town of Sviatohirsk. On Monday, Kyiv spoke of heavy fighting. Russian military had claimed to have taken Sviatohirsk. The city north of Sloviansk was the last outpost of the Ukrainian troops on the north bank of the Seversky Donets River. Russian troops also continued to attack from Lyman and fired rockets at the Sloviansk suburb of Mykolayivka. The information could not be independently verified.
On the other hand, according to British information, the progress of the Russian military on the Popasna axis has stalled in the past week. Reports of heavy shelling near the city of Isium in the Kharkiv region suggested the Russian military was again trying to penetrate the Northern Axis, the British Ministry of Defense said on Twitter. “Russia will almost certainly need to achieve a breakthrough on at least one of these axes in order to translate tactical gains into operational-level successes and progress toward its political goal of controlling all of Donetsk Oblast,” the ministry said. The Donetsk and Luhansk regions, in which the city of Popasna is located, together form the Donbass.
According to military experts from the US Institute for the Study of the War (ISW), the Ukrainians also managed to push the Russian fleet off the Black Sea coast. The Russian Black Sea Fleet is now operating at a safe distance of 100 kilometers, which reduces the pressure on the Ukrainian ports, according to the latest analysis by the ISW. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense made a similar statement on Monday.
Source: Nachrichten
