One week after the five-month Russian military campaign in Ukraine, the Kremlin Army is increasing attacks in the Donetsk region, where the main fighting is now taking place around the town of Síversk, key to future progress in direction to the strongholds of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
Russian offensive operations, which for the time being remain small “in scope and scale”, are now mainly focused on Siversk and Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, according to the daily British intelligence report.
The American Institute for War Studies (ISW) points out that the so-called “operational pause” that Russian troops took about ten days ago seems to have come to an end with new assault operations that the Russian Army is beginning to undertake.
“Assaults remain small-scale and largely unsuccessful,” the ISW report states.
At the same time, the institute’s experts assure that “if the operational pause has really ended, it is likely that the Russians will continue and expand their attacks in the next 72 hours.”
And they agree that Síversk, one of the Donetsk railway junctions that have gained strategic importance in the framework of the Russian offensive, will possibly be the epicenter of fierce fighting between troops from both sides during the coming week.
Simultaneously, Ukraine denounced the increase in bombing in the Donetsk region, which left several dead and wounded and around fifty buildings destroyed.
“There are dead and wounded. Residential buildings, civil infrastructure and crops were damaged,” states the police report collected by the Ukrinform agency.
The Russian troops bombarded twelve population centers: the cities of Avdiivka, Bajmut, Konstyantynivka, Hirnyk, Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, Krasnohorivka and the towns of Zoloti Prudy, Verjnokamianske, Ostrivske, Novomarkove and Yagidne, according to Kiev.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, wrote on his Telegram channel that the Russians killed seven civilians in the kyiv-controlled Donetsk region.
“Dos en Krasnohorivka, uno en Sloviansk, Avdiivka, Zakitne, Hirnyk y Ostrivske. Otras 14 persons resultaron hurtidas”, he said.
The pro-Russian militias in turn accused the Ukrainian Army of bombing the capital of Donetsk, causing three deaths and two injuries among the civilian population.
Another of the areas hit by enemy fire in recent hours was the province of Kharkov, whose capital is the second largest city in the country, according to the Ukrainian authorities.
Despite the gradual increase in the intensity of the fighting on some fronts, the Ukrainians continue to concentrate forces near the Bajmut-Lisichank highway, key to the supply of Ukrainian troops, also known as the “Road of Life”.
Leader of the Lugansk region, controlled almost entirely by Russian troops, the enemy made a new attempt to seize the road, but was forced to withdraw after opening fire by Ukrainian soldiers, according to Serhiy Gaidai.
“Russian forces have been wanting to seize a road that is of strategic importance to them for more than two months, but at the moment they cannot gain control of a few kilometers of the road,” Gaidai wrote on Telegram.
Gaidai also assured that in Lugansk, contrary to what is happening in neighboring Donetsk, the number of bombings has decreased.
This Saturday it was also learned that the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, made his second inspection visit to the Russian contingent participating in the military campaign in Ukraine and ordered to intensify operations on the front to “avoid attacks against the population of Donbas “, informed his press office today.
Shoigú spoke with commanders of different Russian units and decorated two generals who stood out during the fulfillment of the missions, according to the official statement.
This is the second inspection of the Russian group that participates in the campaign in Ukraine for a month carried out by Shoigú.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in turn that Russian forces had inflicted more than 200 casualties on Ukraine in one day during an attack on a military base in Mykolaiv (in the south of the country).
According to the military spokesman, Igor Konashénkov, the “nationalists and mercenaries” who were in the base were eliminated with high-precision missiles, which also destroyed 13 military equipment at the site of the attack.
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