The Ukrainian army must expect an “increasing number of Russian attacks” in the east of the country, particularly around the disputed town of Avdiivka, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday.
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Moscow’s forces have been trying for a month to surround this industrial city, which has become one of the flashpoints of the conflict. This Russian action follows months of Ukrainian offensives that failed to allow Kiev to liberate the occupied territories.
The front line has been virtually frozen for a year, even as Volodymyr Zelensky on one side and the Kremlin on the other assure that the war is not at a dead end.
“The army has reported an increase in the number of enemy attacks,” the Ukrainian president said on his Telegram channel, referring to the Avdiivka, Kupiansk and Donetsk regions in the east.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US-based analytical center, said in its latest report on Monday that “Russian forces continued offensive operations near Avdiivka on November 13 and achieved confirmed successes.”
Volodymyr Zelensky assured that his soldiers “held their positions” and also carried out “offensives”.
Ukraine recently discovered the failure of its counteroffensive, which began last June and encountered solid Russian defenses.
However, there is ground to be gained for Kiev, which wants to avoid tiring its Western allies in the face of a conflict that has lasted almost two years.
In Ukraine it is emphasized that the Kremlin has increased the number of troops in the war and that Western help is therefore more necessary than ever to block Russian ambitions.
“The number of Russian troops in Ukraine is three times higher than at the beginning of the aggression, and our country must therefore maintain international support,” demanded the head of the Ukrainian presidential administration on Telegram on Tuesday, Andriï Iermak, after a meeting in Washington.
There he met Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Briton Timothy Barrow and advisers to German and French leaders Jens Plötner and Emmanuel Bonn.
Ukraine is largely silent about its own offensives.
Since late October, the Ukrainian army has managed to entrench troops on the occupied banks of the Dnieper, particularly in the village of Krynky in the southern Kherson region, according to Russian military bloggers and experts who analyzed open source information.
“Contrary to all expectations, the Ukrainian Defense Forces have gained a foothold on the left bank of the Dnieper,” said Andriï Iermak on Tuesday, without giving further details.
This information has not been confirmed by either the Ukrainian army or Moscow.
Volodymyr Zelensky also accused the Russians on Tuesday of “taking revenge on the free city of Kherson,” which just celebrated the first anniversary of the end of its occupation, by bombing it “for no military reason.”
According to local authorities, Russian attacks the day before left three people dead and 12 injured, including a two-month-old baby.