A tank moves on the road as the Russo-Ukrainian war continues in Kostiantynivka, Ukraine on February 8, 2023.
Marek M. Berezowski | Anadolu agent | beautiful pictures
Ukrainian forces organized defenses along the front lines in Donetsk, including the besieged town of Bakhmut, with the fiercest battles taking place in the cities of Vuhledar and Maryinka, the country’s top military commander said. Kyiv said on Saturday.
Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said Russia carries out about 50 attacks a day in Donetsk, an area in southeastern Ukraine that Moscow is trying to fully occupy.
“Heavy fighting continues in the Vuhledar and Maryinka areas,” Zaluzhnyi said in a Telegram message after a phone call with US General Mark Milley.
“We organized the defense reliably. In some areas of the front, we regained previously lost positions and gained ground.”
Zaluzhnyi did not specify where the profits were. He added that Ukraine continued to hold Bakhmut, forced to “stabilize” the front lines around the town.
The head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner said on Saturday that his forces were facing fierce resistance around Bakhmut from Ukrainian defenders.
On Friday, Britain said Russian forces were gaining ground north of Bakhmut, but had more difficulty attacking Vuhledar, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) to the south.
It is not possible to independently establish zones of control by each side, as fighting along the front lines has slowed in recent months, what Ukraine’s Defense Ministry calls efforts to “pull the cows” to move each one. little one.
Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said that despite Russian pressure in Maryinka, a small city almost abandoned and destroyed that has been on the front lines since the start of the war a year ago, the Ukrainian forces tried to hold their positions.
“Fighting is going on in the city center, but there has been no change in the last 24 hours,” Zhdanov said in a video on social media.
The head of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said it could take two years for Moscow to control the entire Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Ukraine. Moscow last year declared both Russia’s “republics”, in a move condemned as illegal by most countries by the United Nations.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other military officials have waged a diplomatic race in recent months to try to win more Western weapons and fighters.
“The key to success on the battlefield is effective fire damage, which requires the right amount of weapons and ammunition,” says Zaluzhnyi.
