Ukraine on Monday confirmed it was conducting “offensive actions” in various sectors of the battlefront and claimed advances near the devastated city of Bakhmut (east), but downplayed the scale of these attacks, which Moscow says it has repelled.
“The Defensive Operation [da Ucrânia] includes counter-offensive actions. That is why we carry out offensive actions in various sectors”indicated on the Telegram platform the Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar.
“The Bakhmut sector remains the epicenter of hostilities. We are advancing on a very broad front. We have achieved successes and occupied strategic locations. The enemy is on the defensive”Maliar added.
For its part, Russia on Monday said it had repelled major offensives in eastern and southern Ukraine, claiming to have inflicted heavy human and material losses on Ukrainians.
For months, Kiev has been preparing a massive counter-offensive to regain areas in the Donbass region (east) controlled by Russian forces and Russian-speaking separatist militias. However, Ukrainian authorities warned that they will not reveal their plans or the date of the operations.
The Russian paramilitary group Wagner claimed the capture of the city of Bakhmut in May after the longest and deadliest battle of the war. The leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, confirmed on Monday that Ukrainian forces have recaptured part of the town of Berkhivka, north of Bakhmut.
The Ukrainian deputy minister did not comment on the southern sites of the Donetsk region and neighboring Zaporijia, where Moscow claims to have repelled Kiev soldiers.
The information released by both sides about the course of the war cannot be directly verified by independent sources.
The war sparked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022, plunged Europe into what is considered the worst security crisis since World War II (1939-1945).
The number of civilian and military casualties in the conflict is unknown, but several sources, including the United Nations, have admitted it will be very high.
Source: DN
