Russian forces continue to target civilian infrastructure in towns and villages across Ukraine, as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, Ukrainian troops repelled repeated Russian attacks on the strategic eastern city of Bakhmut and after reports of a deadly Russian military firing range.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said early October 16 that Russian forces had attacked more than 30 towns and villages across Ukraine in the past 24 hours, launching five rocket and 23 airstrikes and up to 60 rocket attacks.
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In response, the Ukrainian Air Force launched 32 airstrikes, hitting 24 Russian targets, it said.
Russia has lost ground in the nearly seven weeks since Ukrainian forces launched their counteroffensive in the north-east, east and south.
This week the Kremlin launched what is believed to be its largest coordinated air and missile strike since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
The increased Russian airstrikes came after the Crimean bridge, which has important strategic and symbolic value for Russia in its stalled war in Ukraine, was hit by a truck bomb on October 8, Moscow says.
Fighting is now reported to be particularly fierce in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and in the strategically important Kherson region to the south.
Positions of Ukrainian Armed Forces in the south were attacked several times on October 15, and a small “shooting battle” took place near the village of Tryfonivka (in Kherson), the Southern Command of Ukrainian Armed Forces announced on October 16.
Russian forces also fired nearly 20 Russian-made Grad rockets at the right bank of the Dnieper River in the Kherson region, sources said.
An administration building used by Russia-backed separatists in the city of Donetsk was damaged in Ukrainian shelling on October 16, the Russia-backed separatists said.
Photos circulating on social media showed plumes of smoke swirling around the building, rows of blown out windows and a partially collapsed ceiling. RIA Novosti and local media also reported that three cars parked nearby were burned out as a result of the strike.
Kyiv did not immediately claim responsibility or comment on the attack.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on October 15 that its forces had killed an unspecified number of Ukrainian soldiers and destroyed five tanks near the Kakhovka reservoir on the Dnieper.
RFE/RL cannot independently verify claims by either side in areas of intense fighting.
In his evening address on Oct. 15, Zelenskyy said that despite repeated Russian attacks, Ukrainian troops still held the strategically important city of Bakhmut to the east, while the situation in the wider Donbass region remained very difficult.
Russian forces have repeatedly attempted to take Bakhmut, which lies on a main road leading to the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Both are located in the Donetsk region.
Zelenskyi also said Russian missiles and drones continued to hit Ukrainian cities, causing destruction and casualties.
“We are holding our positions,” Zelenskyy said. “In general, we are doing everything in the east and south to give the occupiers the feeling that they have no perspective.
Zelenskyi said nearly 65,000 Russians have been killed since the Feb. 24 invasion, a number far higher than Moscow’s official Sept. 21 estimate of 5,937 dead. In August, the Pentagon said Russia suffered between 70,000 and 80,000 casualties, either killed or wounded.
The reports of intensified fighting came as two men shot at soldiers at a Russian military firing range near Ukraine on October 15, killing 11 and wounding 15 before being killed themselves, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
The ministry said in a statement that the shooting took place in the Belgorod region of south-western Russia, which borders Ukraine. It said two men from an unnamed former Soviet republic shot volunteer soldiers during target practice and were killed by return fire.
The ministry called the incident a terrorist attack.
“A terrible event happened on our territory, on the territory of one of the military units,” said the governor of the Belgorod region Vyacheslav Gladkov early on October 16.
“Many soldiers were killed and wounded… There are no residents of the Belgorod region among the wounded and killed,” Gladkov said in a video post on the messaging app Telegram.
The shooting comes amid a hasty mobilization ordered by President Vladimir Putin to reinforce Russian forces in Ukraine – a move that has sparked protests and an exodus of hundreds of thousands from Russia, mostly to neighboring countries.
Putin said on October 14 that over 220,000 reservists had already been called up to recruit 300,000. He promised that mobilization would be complete in two weeks.
With reports from AFP, AP and Portal