The Russian army claimed on Saturday it had not been “pushed out” of the village of Andriivka in Ukraine, south of the devastated town of Bakhmut on the Eastern Front, contradicting an announcement by the Ukrainian General Staff the previous day.
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“In the Donetsk sector, the enemy (…) continued to conduct offensive operations (…) and tried in vain to expel Russian troops from the towns of Klichtchiivka and Andriivka,” the Defense Ministry said in its daily announcement.
However, on Friday, the Ukrainian army said it had “liberated Andriivka in the Donetsk region.”
According to this source, Kiev troops inflicted “significant losses in manpower and equipment” on the enemy during “offensive operations.”
The Russian denial sows a little more confusion about the actual situation in this very small village, which was home to about fifty residents before the war, after Kiev announced its capture this week, then denied it and finally confirmed it on Friday.
On Ukrainian television on Friday, Oleksandr Borodin, spokesman for a brigade involved in the fighting there, told him that Andriivka had been “completely destroyed” by the hostilities. “Andriivka no longer exists,” he emphasized.
AFP
In a video published by his brigade on Telegram on Saturday, which claims to show the capture of Andriivka by the Ukrainian army, we see soldiers from Kiev gradually advancing in the open in a hellish environment, between charred trees, destroyed houses and blinding smoke.
The bitter and bloody battle for Bakhmout has been raging north of this small town for more than a year. In May, Moscow claimed control of the city, which had been largely destroyed by fighting and bombing.
The Ukrainian army has been conducting a slow counteroffensive since the beginning of June with the aim of pushing back Russian forces in the east and south. However, it faces strong defense lines of trenches, minefields and tank traps.
This operation has so far only enabled the capture of a handful of villages, but the Ukrainian advance has intensified in recent weeks, particularly on the southern front.