12:33 p.m. ET, June 4, 2023
Ukraine reports two advances along the front line in the east
By Maria Kostenko and Andrew Carey of CNN in Kyiv, Ukraine
The chief of Ukraine’s land forces said the country’s troops had won two small victories on the front line of the battlefield with Russia in contested Donetsk and Luhansk provinces.
The commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, wrote on an official army website that Ukrainian forces had advanced 400 meters (1,300 feet) closer to the town of Svatove in the Luhansk region. Since Svatove lies on important Russian supply routes, any eventual recapture of the city would have important strategic implications.
While the front has been at a standstill for months, hostilities in northern Donetsk and several parts of Luhansk continue “almost around the clock,” Syrskyi said.
Syrskyi said Russia has launched new offensives in several places in the Luhansk region and the northern part of the Donetsk region, some using former prisoners who have been specially trained for assault operations.
While Russian troop reinforcements gave their forces a numerical advantage, Syrskyi opined that Ukraine’s superior mobility gave Kiev an advantage on the battlefield.
“Not even numerical superiority helps the enemy,” he said.
Luhansk and Donetsk make up Ukraine’s Donbass region, an industrial heartland when Russian-backed separatists seized control of two territories in 2014 and proclaimed breakaway republics. Shortly before the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the two separatist territories as independent states and ordered the stationing of Russian troops there, in defiance of international law.
The latest from Bakhmut: Syrskyj also said that Ukrainian forces successfully liberated some areas south of Bakhmut, the Donetsk city where some of the fiercest fighting of the war took place.
Another Ukrainian official, army spokesman Serhii Cherevatyi, said Kiev’s armed forces were mainly engaged in “preparatory activities” and “reconnaissance”.
“We’re trying to conserve our personnel and counterattack only when we think there’s a chance of success,” Cherevatyi said.