The Ukrainian army launched an overnight attack on the Russian-occupied city of Makiivka, showing that they can still strike targets deep behind the Russian lines as their troops fight the war. Tired trenches in a counterattack to regain the land.
Both Ukrainian and Russian officials indicated that Tuesday night’s attack in Makiivka was significant, but they differed on whether it hit military or civilian areas. And the strike had a symbolic resonance because Makiivka is where Ukraine, in January, dealt with Russia. one of life’s greatest loss in a single attack since Moscow’s invasion nearly 18 months ago.
One video share Ukrainian military online shows a huge fireball lighting up the night sky over Makiivka, in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. The military said that a “Russian base” was “defunct” in the city thanks to Ukrainian forces, while Tass, Russia’s state news agency, reported that one man had been killed and 68 wounded civilians. No claim can be independently verified.
The strike comes four weeks after Ukraine slow but intense campaign against the Russian forces who dug into the south and east with miles of trenches and minefields on exposed open fields. Since the counter-offensive began, Ukrainian forces have made small gains, and on Wednesday General Oleksiy Hromov, deputy commander of operations in the army’s general staff, gave some details. details of their progress.
He said that Ukraine has retaken nine settlements in the past month, mainly small farming villages, and about 62 square miles. He also said that the “hot line”, where Ukraine engages directly with the Russian military, is about 745 miles long.
The numbers cannot be independently verified, but they appear to be consistent with previous reporting by The New York Times — and given the fierce, fierce nature of the fighting as soldiers and civilians alike Ukraine described. Russian officials have said that the Ukrainian operation is being pushed back.
For months, as Ukraine prepared and launched a counterattack, and when Russia attacked before — shocking on many fronts and take a shot only the eastern city of Bakhmut — the two sides exchanged long-range attacks on targets far from the front lines.
While Ukraine uses Western-supplied weapons, such as HIMARS missiles, to attack Russia’s supply lines and arsenals, Russia regularly targets civilian centers, shelling defense Ukraine’s Kyiv 17 times in May alone.
Although many Russian missiles and drones were shot down by Ukrainian air defenses, the attacks made many Ukrainians in Kiev nervous and ready to race to bomb shelters. Nerves were high again on Wednesday after a man detonated an explosive device in a city courthouse, setting a stalemate that ended with the deaths of him and two counter-arrest officers. injured response. Authorities have not named the man, and his case does not appear to be related to the war.
During Tuesday night’s attack on Makiivka, videos geolocated by The Times confirmed an explosion on the outskirts of the city: An initial explosion caused multiple secondary explosions and flares before causing produced a much larger explosion, suggesting the site could be an arsenal.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not immediately react to Ukraine’s claim of the attack, but pro-Russian officials in Makiivka accused Ukraine of using long-range missiles and Western-supplied artillery to attack citizens. often. duty quoted a local official, Igor Kimakovsky, as saying that HIMARS rockets and artillery hit the “peaceful” districts of the city. Those claims also cannot be independently verified.
It was the HIMARS attack that killed at least 63 Russian soldiers — and possibly hundreds more — in a barracks in Makiivka on New Year’s Day. The attack attracted Criticize the Russian military from a number of influential supporters of the Moscow war effort and led the Russian Ministry of Defense to declare that it had carried out retaliatory strike on Ukraine.
At that time, the Russian authorities blamed their troops in Makiivka for revealing their location by use mobile phonesays that the data facilitated an attack by long-range armed Ukrainian forces from Western allies.
Makiivka, near the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk, only about 10 miles northwest of Ukrainian-controlled Avdiivka — good within about 50 miles HIMARS missiles that the United States sent to Ukraine. Military analysts argue that the HIMARS system is most effective against fixed targets that can be determined in advance and precisely identified, such as ammunition dumps, infrastructure, and gathering places. soldiers.
Anatoly Kurmanaev And Malachy Browne contribution report.
