The data is compelling: it shows that the Ukrainian army is gaining ground in the current counteroffensive in the Zaporizhia (south) and Donetsk (east) regions at a much lower level than in the operation conducted in September in Kharkov (northeast). . This means, as the Ukrainian government itself acknowledges, that the Russian invaders withstood the advance of local troops, who are making little headway even after the first two weeks of the military operation. The Kremlin military is concentrating the bulk of its forces in the east, according to Kiev, while continuing long-range strikes against points across the country. In the early hours of Tuesday, rockets and drone bombs reached Kiev, Lviv and Zaporizhia, but claimed no lives.
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“The enemy used all their strength to stop the offensive,” Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar confirmed on Tuesday. “He won’t give up that easily and we have to be prepared for it to be a tough fight. That’s exactly what’s happening now,” he added in comments on national television. In any case, Maliar defends the role of the Ukrainian military, hinting that events are not unfolding in an extraordinary way and assuring that his army’s big blow is yet to come. “In some areas our fighters are advancing, in others they are defending their positions and resisting the occupier’s fierce attacks. We didn’t lose any positions. We just published them. They only have casualties,” President Volodymyr Zelensky commented in his speech on Monday.
Ignoring the information they receive from the highest levels of government, a group of a dozen uniformed men attended a training session Tuesday afternoon. At a shooting range outside the town of Zaporizhia, a colleague taught them how to shoot a new weapon, a grenade launcher. A drone monitored the area to avoid the presence of cows or shepherds as they went to shoot one by one.
Aware of the few territories recovered from the invaders, Maliar stated: “It is not necessary to measure the result of the work of the Defense Forces solely by settlements and kilometers traveled, since there are many more criteria for the effectiveness of military operations.” Moreover he defended the role of his men in his speech: “The ongoing operation has several tasks and the military carries out these tasks.” They move as they should move. And the biggest blow is yet to come.
However, there are fronts like Kupiansk (Kharkov region) and Liman (Donetsk region) where “the enemy is advancing and we are on the defensive,” admits the deputy minister.
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After the first week of the September counter-offensive in the northern Kharkov region, the deputy minister reported that they managed to capture 3,800 square kilometers in that region alone. Well, after two weeks of campaigning in Zaporizhia and Donetsk, Maliar announced on Monday that the total number of troops recovered was 113. It is true that the current counter-offensive has been announced by Ukraine for months, allowing Russia to reinforce its troop positions. . A dense network of trenches, barbed wire, obstacles to tanks and armored vehicles, and minefields awaited the Ukrainians as they advanced hundreds of kilometers.
“Despite the fact that our troops are advancing at different points in the south, the enemy concentrates a large part of his forces in the east and continues to advance there, because that is where the main direction of the enemy’s attack lies, because that is where the aggressor gives the intended goal not up [controlar] the borders of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions,” added the deputy minister responsible for announcing the results of the counteroffensive.
Meanwhile, Russia keeps bombing various regions of Ukraine more or less distant from the battle fronts. In the early hours of Tuesday, it launched an airstrike with drone bombs and missiles on several cities including Kiev (the capital), Lviv (to the west, near the Polish border) and Zaporizhia (south). The Ukrainian military said it managed to shoot down 28 out of 30 Iranian-made Shahed-model drones launched. One of them hit “critical infrastructure” facilities, about which the authorities gave no further details.
In Zaporizhia, like in large parts of the country, the alarms sounded in the early hours of the morning. After twelve o’clock at night, several heavy detonations could be heard, as EL PAÍS was able to verify. The military administration reported an attack with at least seven S-300 missiles. Local anti-aircraft forces also shot down three drones in southern Ukraine’s Mykolaiv province. In the same region is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, which has remained in the hands of the occupiers since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. These facilities were probably mined by the Russian military, the chief of military intelligence, Kirilo Budanov, said on state television on Tuesday.
In the Kherson region, one person died after an attack on a crew cleaning up one of the areas affected by flooding after the Nova Kakhovka dam explosion, sources close to President Zelenskyy reported. For its part, according to the official TASS news agency, Russia condemned a Ukrainian drone attack on the city of Nova Kajovka, which was occupied by Kremlin forces, in which three people were injured.
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