“The situation in Donbass is extremely difficult,” Zelenskyy said. The Russian army is trying to attack the cities of Sloviansk and Sievjerodonetsk, in the east of the country. “The Armed Forces of Ukraine are holding back this offensive.” Every day that “our defenders” thwart Russia’s plans is a concrete contribution on the road to victory. But Selenskyjs also warned: “We have to keep fighting.”
Zelenskyy said the Russian army had destroyed 1,873 educational institutions in Ukraine since the war began three months ago. “Russia has sent virtually all of its resources to destroy us.” At the same time, he warned that the war could be forgotten in parts of the country where there is currently no fighting. One must not be careless, he warned. “Ukrainians die every day for our independence.” The war is not over yet. “We have to keep fighting.”
During the night, the Ukrainian military reported fighting in progress in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east of the country. Nine attacks by Russian troops were repelled on Saturday. The Ukrainian army said five tanks, four artillery systems and a drone were destroyed during the day. According to the situation report, Russia is deploying combat aircraft, rocket launchers and tanks along the entire front.
Ukraine has once again blamed Russia for the deaths of seven civilians in the Donetsk region controlled by government forces. The governor of the region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, wrote on the Telegram news channel that three people were killed in Lyman alone. He initially did not comment on the exact circumstances. In the Russian-controlled southern Kherson region, the local administration accused Ukrainian forces of killing three civilians and wounding ten in the town of Biloserka on Saturday. This information could not be verified.
In the Zaporizhia region of southern Ukraine, the local administration says it has observed an increasing number of Russian drone flights. The Russian military has increased aerial reconnaissance, he said. In addition, columns of military vehicles were sighted. Zaporizhia is northwest of the Ukrainian port of Mariupol, once occupied by Russia, on the Sea of Azov.
Despite the defeat at Mariupol, Zelenskyy believes that the Ukrainian army caused great damage to the Russian armed forces. Ukraine “has broken the backbone of the Russian army,” Zelensky said in a television interview broadcast on Saturday. “They won’t be able to get back on their feet in the next few years,” said the 44-year-old.
Shortly before, the last more than 2,400 Ukrainian defenders of the port city in the south-east of the country surrendered and were taken prisoner by the Russians. According to pro-Russian separatists, there were 78 women among the fighters. According to Russian state agency TASS, the head of the Donetsk separatists, Denis Puschilin, said on Saturday night that foreigners had also been taken into Russian captivity. He didn’t give a number.
Meanwhile, prominent Russian foreign policy expert Leonid Slutsky has not ruled out an exchange of captured Ukrainian fighters in Mariupol by pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk. “We will examine the possibility of replacing Medvedchuk with Azov fighters,” Slutsky said, according to Interfax. He later explained on his blog on the Telegram news channel that the fighters would have to be brought to justice in any case. There’s no getting around a courtroom, he emphasized. Competent people would have to decide whether Medvedchuk should be replaced.