Russian-backed forces have made some advances in eastern Ukraine, British intelligence said, even as Moscow’s hold weakens in the south, where a Russian-installed official has advised residents to flee a region Russia claims to have annexed.
A British intelligence update said forces led by the private Russian military company Wagner Group had captured the villages of Optyine and Ivangrad south of the fiercely-contested town of Bakhmut, the first such advance in more than three months.
“There have been few, if any, other settlements seized by regular Russian or separatist forces since early July,” said the daily update from Britain, which normally focuses on Ukrainian battlefield successes.
Ukraine launched a counteroffensive in late August against Russian forces occupying the country since the start of their invasion in February, pushing them out of the northeast and putting them under heavy pressure in the south.
Its main focus now is Kherson – one of four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces that Russia claims to have annexed in recent weeks, and arguably the most strategically important.
Russia’s TASS news agency said evacuees from the Kherson region were expected to begin arriving in Russia today, a day after a Russian-installed official advised all residents of the region to flee, especially those around Kherson city.
While some people in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine have fled to Russia as Ukrainian forces advance, others have reported being forced towards Russia and others still have fled westward to Ukrainian-controlled parts of their country.
Blow to annexation claims
A flight of civilians from Kherson would be a blow to Russia’s claim last month to have annexed around 15% of Ukraine’s territory and incorporated an area the size of Portugal into Russia.
Russia has assigned many of its best-trained troops to defend Kherson’s west bank. But that force can only be supplied across the river, which is several kilometres wide and has few crossings.
Mykolaiv, the nearest big Ukrainian-held city to Kherson, came under massive Russian bombardment yesterday, with civilian facilities hit, local officials said.
Regional Governor Vitaly Kim said the top two floors of a five-story residential building were destroyed and the rest were under rubble. Video footage provided by state emergency services showed rescuers pulling out an 11-year-old boy who Mr Kim said had spent six hours trapped under the rubble.
In the east, three Russian missiles exploded yesterday morning near the central market in Kupiansk, a major railway junction city that Ukrainian forces recaptured in September.
The missiles destroyed shops, carpeting surrounding streets with glass shards, rubble, and twisted metal sheets.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address yesterday that “brutal” fighting continued in the wine- and salt-producing town of Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region, another area Russia has attempted to annex.
He said Ukrainian troops were defending Bakhmut with “skillful and heroic actions.”
Mr Zelensky also accused the International Committee of the Red Cross of inaction in upholding the rights of Ukrainian prisoners of war and urged it to undertake a mission to a camp in the Russian-occupied east of the country.
In the latest of a series of Ukrainian criticisms of the ICRC, he said no one had yet visited Olenivka – a notorious camp in eastern Ukraine where dozens of Ukrainian POWs died in an explosion and fire in July.
‘Dangerous times’
Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded to the battlefield setbacks with dramatic moves to escalate the conflict: proclaiming the annexation of territory, calling up hundreds of thousands of reservists and repeatedly threatening to use nuclear weapons to protect Russia.
Yesterday NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said after a two-day meeting of defence ministers that the alliance would not drop support for Ukraine because of Russian nuclear threats. Many countries pledged new military aid for Ukraine.
“They know that if they use (a) nuclear weapon against Ukraine, it will have severe consequences,” Mr Stoltenberg told reporters.
This week, Russia launched the biggest air strikes since the start of the war, firing more than 100 cruise missiles mainly at Ukraine’s electricity and heat infrastructure.
Mr Putin said the strikes were retaliation for a blast on Saturday that damaged Russia’s bridge to Crimea.
Ukraine’s top prosecutor said yesterday his office had opened criminal proceedings relating to Russian missile strikes that struck Kyiv and cities across Ukraine this week.
Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said the more than 112 Russian strikes had killed 17 people and injured 93.
“The goal of Russia’s deliberate attacks is to cause civilian deaths and to destroy civilian infrastructure … provoke a humanitarian catastrophe,” Mr Kostin said.
“Coupled with the intimidation tactics against civilians, it’s a classical act of terror prohibited under international law.”
Russia denies it targets civilians.
Russian forces capture villages in east Ukraine
Source: Viral Trends Report
0 Comments