Eight new shock brigades of Ukrainian soldiers were formed to take part in the future counteroffensive. This was stated by Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko in an interview with Interfax Ukraine. “The brigades are fully formed. There are 8 brigades. We plan to form additional brigades because there is a need and we have the opportunity,” said Klymenko. Ukraine’s Interior Ministry has “fully trained” the initial “shock” brigades, which will number up to 40,000 troops, but added that they would need further training before they would be ready.
The offensive in eastern Ukraine, which has been going on since the winter and aimed, among other things, at capturing Bakhmut, has meanwhile been “failed” by Russia. The United States says it is certain of that as it awaits the now-famous Ukrainian counteroffensive in the spring, which may be crucial to the fate of the conflict. US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the Russians had lost 20,000 dead and another 80,000 seriously wounded in the past five months. “Arbitrary numbers,” the Kremlin replied, while Moscow’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu assured that over 15,000 Ukrainians had been eliminated in the last month alone. In reality, the casualties on both sides are military secrets, and that is why the UN warns that the figures provided by the belligerents cannot be trusted. Just as statements by both sides about the lack of weapons and ammunition in their own armed forces, which could be a ploy to deceive the enemy, should be viewed with caution. Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Russian private military company Wagner, on the front line of the war in Donbass, does it regularly.
“The bureaucrats of the military apparatus,” Prigozhin denounced again today, “committed the most serious crime that can be committed, and without weapons, ammunition and other necessary things, they forced the Russian people to die.” While Kiev continues to complain that the West is not providing all of the weapon systems needed for the counteroffensive. But Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said the success of the operation would go a long way toward continuing military support from partners. On one point, Kiev and Moscow agree: Both said they knew nothing about the peacekeeping mission in Ukraine that Pope Francis had spoken about on the plane that was supposed to take him back to Rome after his visit to Hungary. So no compromises. “Our state has already shown that it can win,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram, reiterating that the goal is to recapture “all those areas that are temporarily still occupied.” But Russian President Vladimir Putin shows that he does not want to give up these areas and even promises that everything will be done for the development of the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions annexed by Russia. Today, with a video conference ceremony, he inaugurated the new tram network being built in Mariupol in Donetsk, which was captured by Moscow’s forces last year.
Ambitious Russian reconstruction projects, in which some European companies are also involved, have been underway for some time in Mariupol, which was already the scene of the siege of the Azovstal steelworks, according to Moscow. And Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin announced that new buildings totaling 67,000 square meters have already been built in the four regions, and another 393,000 square meters have been renovated. Meanwhile, the reports of the dead from the bombings of the last 24 hours are being counted: The administration of the Russian-held part of the Zaporizhia province announced that five civilians were killed and 15 injured in a bomb attack yesterday on the city of Tokmak. According to Zelensky, however, two people were killed and 40 others injured in a missile attack by Russian forces on the city of Pavlograd in the Dnipropetrovsk region north of Zaporizhia last night. Yesterday, Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed the attack and said facilities of Ukraine’s military-industrial complex in the city were hit. While the path of peace seems impossible at the moment, for many Russians even that of love remains difficult: The dating app Tinder will leave the country by June 30, announced Match Group, the company that controls it.
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