Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that a long-awaited counter-offensive from Ukraine had begun, but that Kiev had failed to achieve its objectives.
“We can definitively say that this Ukrainian offensive has begun,” Putin said in a video interview published by a Russian journalist on Telegram. “But the Ukrainian forces failed to achieve their objectives in any combat zone,” he added.
“All counter-offensive attempts have failed so far, but the Kiev regime still has offensive potential,” Putin said, adding that Russia’s response would be based on this “information”.
A Russian government official this Friday referred to “active fighting” in the Zaporijia region, southern Ukraine, with observers pointing to the beginning of the counter-offensive from Kiev, which remains silent.
“At present, active fighting has resumed in the region between Orekhovo [Orikhiv em russo] and Tokmak”, at the level of the current frontline between Ukrainian-Russian troops, Vladimir Rogov stated in Telegram.
No further details were given, but according to Alexandre Sladkov, a correspondent for Russian Public Television, who owns a Telegam channel followed by more than a million people, Russian and Ukrainian “artillery” are in action, with Kiev troops on the offensive.
“Fighting is hard and prolonged,” he wrote this morning, stating that “the front line remains stable.”
“The enemy promotes incredible efforts, launches attacks. In vain. Our troops remain steadfast. The front line is held,” he assured.
On Thursday, Russian Defense Minister Serguei Shoigu said his army had repelled a Ukrainian offensive in the Zaporijia region on Wednesday night, without specifying the exact location of the attack.
According to Dmitri Rogozin, a senior Russian official, the Moscow army “repulsed the first attack”. “But the enemy has not yet introduced its main forces,” he added, after indicating that Ukraine had concentrated “600 tanks” [de combate]” in the area.
The head of the Wagner paramilitary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said on Thursday that in the latest “offensive actions” confirmed by Kiev, he discovered “the beginning of a counter-offensive” that the Ukrainian army has been announcing for months.
In the daily bulletin released today, the Ukrainian military makes no reference to these battles.
“The opponent remains on the defensive,” the Ukrainian commander confined himself to writing about the situation on the Zaporijia front.
According to observers quoted by the AFP news agency, the Ukrainian army in this region could try to launch an attack on Tokmak, in occupied territory and 40 kilometers south of Orikhiv, an important logistical hub for Russian troops and the last major location for next to the towns of Melitopol and Berdiansk, held by Russian troops and local Russian-speaking militias.
In recent weeks, Ukraine appears to have been testing Russian positions along the frontline from south to east, a way to maintain uncertainty before launching a decisive attack to recapture all areas held by Russia and local separatist forces, including the Crimea annexed in 2014. .
Moscow, for its part, insists it intends to take control of the entire Donbass region, in the east of the country.
On the Russian side of the border, three people were slightly injured today when a ‘drone’ hit a building in the town of Voronezh, about 200 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, regional governor Alexandre Gussev said.
This was the first incident of its kind in Voronezh, a city of more than a million people, in more than 15 months of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, and as Russia has been the target of a growing number of drone strikes for weeks. attributed to Ukrainian troops.
The armed conflict in Ukraine, which began with the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, plunged Europe into what is considered the most serious security crisis since World War II (1939-1945).
on update
Source: DN
