The pace of battles has intensified between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. Where the fiercest and most violent battle between the two sides is currently taking place in the strategic city of Bakhmut, which Russian forces are trying to control, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the situation is hellish, at a time when the city of Odessa was left without electricity following a violent Russian attack with marches.
And the Russian forces advanced a little towards the city and announced the seizure of small towns, and began to approach Bakhmut, in which half of its population, numbering seventy thousand people, remained before the war. Bakhmut’s capture would cut Ukrainian supply lines and open a path for Russian forces to advance towards Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, Ukraine’s two main strongholds in Donetsk.
The Russian army is following the same strategy used in Severodonetsk, i.e. bombarding the city with artillery and destroying all the infrastructure, to push the Ukrainian soldiers to retreat.
War correspondents on both the Russian and Ukrainian sides say that the enemy is losing soldiers by the dozens, if not hundreds, every day, and that the battle around the city has turned into something like a “meat grinder”.
Yesterday morning, Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that fighting along the front line in the east is very difficult and mentioned Bakhmut by name, but cited him with the names of other cities. Zelensky said “every meter counts” in the city, which has been reduced to rubble by Russian bombing.
Before that, Zelensky said, “hell is under the Russian flag” in Ukraine.
“It’s very difficult,” Zelensky said, in his daily speech, especially on the front in Donbass in eastern Ukraine, enumerating hot spots in Bakhmut, Solidar and Krymina. In these areas, he said, “there is no place that hasn’t been damaged for a long time by bombing”.
Zelinsky said: “Another city in Donbass that the Russian army has turned into burnt ruins”, while his adviser, Mikhailo Podolyak, described the situation around Bakhmut as “hell on earth”.
And the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov announced that Kiev is capable of doing anything, including continuing to strike Russian territory in case of attacks on Ukraine.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a meeting with Russia’s Heroes that Moscow was hitting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, but the first blows were struck by those who targeted the Crimean Bridge.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian authorities announced yesterday that the city of Odessa, located in southern Ukraine, is almost completely without electricity, in the wake of a Russian drone attack during the night. “The city is without electricity at the moment,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Kyrylo Tymoshenko said on his Telegram account. However, he said basic infrastructure, especially hospitals and maternity wards, is powered by electricity. “The situation is still difficult, but it’s under control,” Tymoshenko said.
(agencies)
