7/16/2023-|Last update: 7/16/202309:11 AM (Mecca Time)
Russia announced that it had repulsed today, Sunday, an attack with drones on the Crimean peninsula, and while the battles continue in eastern and southern Ukraine without either side achieving decisive progress, according to a report that Kiev lost a fifth of its weapons within two weeks of its counterattack.
The pro-Russian governor of Crimea, Mikhail Razvozayev, announced that the Russian air defenses and the Black Sea Fleet shot down 6 drones this morning, in addition to destroying two drone boats in the waters of the peninsula.
Razvozaev added that the Ukrainian attacks targeted 3 regions – including the city of Sevastopol – and did not result in any damage.
Later, the pro-Russian Crimean authorities announced that the movement of ships in the port of Sevastopol had begun to return to normal after repelling the attack by drones.
Moscow had previously announced that Crimea had been subjected to similar Ukrainian attacks, and Ukrainian officials confirmed that their forces would seek to restore Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
Raids and battles
In other field developments, the Ukrainian General Staff said in a statement today, Sunday, that Russia launched 40 raids and fired 46 missiles towards Ukrainian territory during the past 24 hours.
The statement added that its forces carried out 9 raids on sites of the Russian forces, shooting down 7 drones, and targeting two ammunition stores, 5 artillery emplacements, and two air defense systems.
Regarding the battles taking place in Donetsk Province (east), the Ukrainian General Staff stated that the Russian forces are concentrating their operations in the vicinity of the cities of Kobyansk, Liman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Marinka, stressing that the Ukrainian army has repelled Russian attempts to advance on all fronts.
The Ukrainian army had previously confirmed that it had made progress south of the city of Bakhmut, while Russian sources spoke of the Russian army’s control of strategic sites north of the city, which fell to the forces of the Russian Wagner Military Group last May after fighting for many months.
Ukrainian officials acknowledged that the counterattack launched by their forces since the fourth of last June in the regions of Donetsk (east) and Zaporizhia (south) is facing fierce resistance by Russian forces, which have established strong defensive fortifications in the past months.
Ukrainian losses
The New York Times, citing officials, reported that Ukraine lost a fifth of its weapons in the first two weeks of its counteroffensive.
The officials told the newspaper that the losses of the Ukrainian counterattack decreased starting from the third week after the slowdown of the Ukrainian attacks.
They added that Ukraine focused on weakening Russian forces with artillery and long-range missiles and that it had changed its tactics.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Army, General Valery Zaluzhny, threatened for the first time to strike the Russian rear with Ukrainian-made weapons, not Western ones.
Zalogny stated in an interview with the American newspaper “The Washington Post” that it is possible to fight the Russian forces on its territory using Ukrainian weapons as much as is necessary, as he put it.
Russian soldiers on an armored vehicle (Associated Press)
new recruits
On the other hand, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced yesterday, Saturday, that 147,000 recruits will be called up for military service in the army, after completing the recruitment process in the spring of this year.
The ministry said that most recruits are registered in training formations and military units to master modern military equipment.
She explained that most of the recruits will obtain a specialization in the so-called military registration within 5 months.
It is noteworthy that the compulsory military conscription decree was issued at the end of last March, and the dispatch of recruits began on April 20 and was completed yesterday, Saturday.
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2023-07-16 05:33:01
