Ukraine wants to continue its counter-offensive against Russian forces, even in bad weather. “The fighting will continue in one form or another. It is more difficult to fight in the cold, in the rain and in the mud. The fighting will continue. The counteroffensive will continue,” Ukrainian intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said on Saturday.
The counteroffensive is taking place in several directions, Budanov continued. Progress is slower than he would like and the situation is difficult. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu recently described the Ukrainian counter-offensive launched three months ago as completely unsuccessful. So far there have been no major gains in land. On August 24, Ukrainian troops reported the liberation of the village of Robotyne, considered part of Russia’s most fortified defensive wall. According to a British situation report published on Saturday, this has resulted in Russia having to pool forces from other parts of the front line, weakening its ability to launch offensive operations of its own.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s new Defense Minister Rustem Umerov urged Kiev’s Western backers to quickly supply his country with more heavy weapons. “We are grateful for the support provided,” Umerov said at a conference in Kiev, in a speech whose text was released on Saturday. “We need more heavy weapons,” he added. “We need them today. We need them now.”
Meanwhile, the head of the Russian occupation of the Crimean peninsula, Sergei Aksyonov, announced that an enemy drone had been shot down by Russian air defenses in the northwest of the region. Russia annexed Crimea in the spring of 2014. As a result of last year’s large-scale Russian war of aggression, Kiev began taking military steps to retake the region.
Previously, a fire had broken out in a Russian military unit in the Crimean capital, Simferopol. “There was an ordinary house fire in a military unit in Simferopol,” Oleg Kryuchkov, an adviser to the Russian leadership on the annexed Black Sea peninsula, wrote in Telegram on Saturday. The fire has already been located. On the other hand, a video of a large column of black smoke was widely shared on social media.
Citing residents, there was also talk of an explosion and shooting. The cause of the fire initially remained unclear. Drone attacks against the Russian occupiers have increased in recent months.