WITH . – 03/25/2022 20:01 (act. 03/25/2022 20:01)
Russian army in trouble and progress. Pictured: Odessa in Ukraine. © AP (symbol image)
Four weeks after the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian army appears to be fighting on some fronts but is making progress on others.
According to British sources, Ukrainian troops recaptured cities and defensive positions up to 35 kilometers east of Kiev. On the other hand, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, the Russian troops may have managed to build a land bridge from the Donetsk region in the east to the Crimean peninsula.
Russia: a destroyed fuel base near the capital of Ukraine
According to a Russian agency report, the Russian Defense Ministry said it destroyed a large fuel depot near the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, as a result of a rocket attack. According to police, a clinic in the disputed Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine was hit by Russian fire. As a result, four people died. Two rockets also hit a Ukrainian military unit near the city of Dnieper. The region’s governor spoke of “severe damage.”
Russia: Armed forces focus on “liberating” Donbas
According to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow, the Russian armed forces are focused on the complete “liberation” of Donbas. According to the Russian news agency Ifax, an attack on the barricaded Ukrainian cities cannot be ruled out in general. In the case of the “special operation” in Ukraine, the ministry considered two options: either within the separatist areas of Donbas or throughout the territory of Ukraine.
However, according to American information, Russia has huge problems with its precisely guided missiles. The high-tech weapons used in the attack on Ukraine had a failure rate of up to 60 percent, US officials said, citing intelligence information to Reuters. According to the Russian General Staff, 1,351 Russian soldiers were killed in Ukraine and 3,825 were injured. None of this information can be independently verified.
The Ukrainian government hopes to open an escape corridor
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government hopes that an evacuation corridor for the encircled Mariupol port will be opened next Friday. It should concern the civilian population that can leave South-East Ukraine in a private vehicle, said Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. Numerous vehicles are ready for evacuation in nearby Berdyansk. “There are currently 48 buses there,” said Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Wereszczuk on Friday in the video. There is also a tanker for refueling private vehicles in the city, about 70 kilometers from Mariupol.
A corridor to the large city of Zaporozhye for further escape was agreed with the Russian side. In addition, there is an agreement on another escape route from Russian-occupied Melitopol to Zaporizhia. Mariupol, once inhabited by 400,000, is one of the Ukrainian cities hardest hit by Russian attacks.
The president of Ukraine asked for further help
In the video, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky once again called on the West to do more for his country. At Thursday’s summits in Brussels, NATO, the G7 and the EU called on Russia to end the fighting immediately. On the second day of the summit, EU Heads of State and Government first discussed the issue of the deployment of war refugees and then want to consider how to respond to high energy prices.
Ukraine and Western countries talk about the aggressive war and the Russian invasion of a neighboring country, which began on February 24. In turn, Russia describes its actions in Ukraine as a special operation to destroy military bases and the demilitarization and “denazification” of Ukraine.