Amid fierce fighting on many fronts, the Ukrainian military said that Russian forces had launched missile and air attacks on several targets in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Ukrainian Armed Forces spokesman Oleksandr Shtupun said that the Russian military fired four Tochka missiles in the regions of Bakhmut, Kramatorsk, Kostiantynivka and Lysychansk, as well as carried out air strikes on Sloviansk and Soledar.
North of Sloviansk, a primary target for Russian forcesShtupun said, artillery was used against some settlements. The community of Sviatohirsk, 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) north of Sloviansk, appears to have witnessed fierce fighting. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier on Saturday said that a wooden church there, which collapsed for the first time under the Soviet Union, had been restored. destroyed again.
Further east, “fights continue to establish complete control over the city of Severodonetsk,” Shtupun said.
Ukrainian officials say Ukrainian forces have recovered some ground in the city. However, Russian combat helicopters and planes have attacked nearby towns and villages, including Hirske and Ustynivka, Shtupun said.
Shtupun said there were airstrikes on several other areas of the front line with Russian Su-25s operating in the area.
The big picture shows Russia’s intense efforts to degrade Ukraine’s defenses with missiles, rockets and aerial bombardment, but with only modest incremental gains on the ground. for Russian forces north of Sloviansk and is developing a stalemate amid street fighting in Severodonetsk.
On Friday, the military junta of the Luhansk region predicted that Russian forces would not succeed in capturing Severodonetsk in the next two weeks. Shtupun said that “Ukrainian defense forces inflicted losses on the Russian occupiers in all areas where hostilities continued to occur.”
Follow latest intelligence assessment from the UK Ministry of Defense earlier on Saturday, Russian air activity “remains at a high level” in eastern Ukraine and has contributed to Russia’s “recent tactical successes”, but has had “no effect”. significant impact on the conflict”.
In southern Ukraine, the military reported a Russian air strike in an area in the Zaporizhzhia region that has seen recent ground fighting.
Maxim Marchenko, head of the Odesa regional military administration, said two people were also injured in a missile attack.
