For the first time, Ukraine has also directly committed itself to attacks on Russian bases on the annexed peninsula of Crimea. The country has carried out a number of successful rocket attacks there, including on the Saki base, Ukrainian military chief Valeriy Zalushnyi said in an article he co-authored for Ukrinform news agency on Wednesday. Ten fighter jets were destroyed.
So far, Ukraine has only hinted that it may have been involved in the August attacks.
Zalushnji also wrote that he had every reason to believe that the war in his country would not end this year. He also warned that there is a “direct risk” that Russia will use tactical nuclear weapons under certain circumstances. Another Russian attack on the capital Kyiv cannot be ruled out, nor can an attack from Belarus.
Senior Separatist: Ukrainian counterattack in eastern Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin described the actions in Ukraine as purely advantageous for his country. “We have lost nothing and we will lose nothing,” Putin said at the economic forum in Vladivostok in eastern Russia. The most important gain for Russia is a strengthening of its own sovereignty.
Despite this, the Ukrainian armed forces appear to be making progress in their counter-offensive in the east of the country. The government in Kyiv continued to keep a low profile. But the opposing high-ranking separatist Danijl Bessonov from the Russian-occupied part of the Donetsk region was unusually open. According to him, Ukrainian forces began an attack on Balaklija that had been in preparation for some time on Tuesday. The 27,000-inhabitant city lies between the embattled city of Kharkiv and the Russian-occupied Izyum, where an important railway junction for Russian supplies is located.
According to the Ukrainian armed forces, the actual counteroffensive is taking place in the south of the country. But here, too, the already sparse information and data can hardly be checked independently. The leadership in Kyiv does not allow journalists to go to the front and only publishes limited reports on the situation in order to keep Russia in the dark and not to lose the momentum of surprise. A military spokeswoman was quoted in the media as saying that “some areas have already been liberated”. According to Western military experts, Ukraine in the south is apparently trying to pin down thousands of Russian soldiers on the west bank of the Dnieper and destroy their supply lines.
Source: Nachrichten
