After days and months of reminders and weapons supplies and Western logistics, it seems like the much-tried counter-offensive announced by the Kiev government has finally begun. The aim is to recapture all the territories captured by the Russians and the troops are given a North to South advance. The Washington Post writes, citing four Ukrainian military sources who stated that Kiev troops are intensifying their attacks on the front lines in the southeast of the country. Two Ukrainian officials, including a source close to President Volodymyr Zelensky, confirmed to ABC News that an active phase of the Ukrainian counteroffensive has begun. Information that the Russians officially denied. But let’s see what’s going on on the field, point by point, from North to South.
Bakhmut: Ukrainians advance in symbolic city
Bakhmut has been one of the key cities of the conflict for months. In recent months, the city has been the scene of fierce fighting that, for many analysts, resembled trench warfare in the First World War. The city is one of the few places where Russian soldiers continued the offensive and fell after months of bloody fighting last May. Now it looks like the Ukrainians have definitively counter-attacked after they have advanced through the city’s outskirts in recent days.
Because both Zelensky and Putin can lose in Bakhmut
Serhiy Cherevaty, spokesman for the eastern group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces: Ukrainian defense forces would have advanced more than a kilometer and a half north and south of the city, where the Russians “brutally resisted with artillery.”
“The direction of Bakhmut continues to be active in terms of counter-offensive activities of our troops, our defense forces advanced up to 1,600 meters in some directions on the south and north flanks, the enemy is resisting fiercely using artillery and hit our positions 342 times with various weapons. 6 air strikes, 120 in 10 gunfights. we killed 184 people, wounded 184 people and took one prisoner.In addition, 5 tanks, an armored personnel carrier, an amphibious assault vehicle, an armored vehicle, an armored vehicle were destroyed.D-30 cannon, electronic warfare station, 2 Orlan 10 UAVs, fiber optical reconnaissance station and 9 field magazines with ammunition,” added Cherevaty.
Zaporizhzhia: War heats up in the southern region
Fierce clashes are also taking place in the Zaporizhzhia region, where the nuclear power plant of the same name is located. “Today an attempt was made to break through our defense in the Zaporizhzhia region,” said Defense Minister Sergei. “The enemy was stopped and withdrawn after suffering heavy losses,” said Shoigu, adding that the Ukrainian forces used 150 armored vehicles in their attacks. Ukrainian forces.
The Ukrainian version is different. “On the Zaporizhzhia line, in the Orichova region, the enemy is actively on the defensive.” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar emphasized in Telegram that conflicts continue in the south of Ukraine, where “the battles continue for Velika Novosilka in the direction of Novopalivsk” in the Donetsk region.
Meanwhile, the monitoring level for the co-named nuclear power plant in the region is increasing: “It is essential to preserve the integrity of the plant’s cooling pool and the discharge channel of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. It is imperative that the plant has enough water to provide basic cooling to the site in the coming months, said Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, after the Kakhovka dam burst. IAEA website. And Kiev is alarming: according to Ukrainian officials, there is not enough water to cool the Zaporizhzhia plant.
Kherson: How is the situation after the dam collapsed?
And in the south, in the Kherson region, the situation remains dramatic after the collapse of the dam on the Dnipro river. According to the news of the Guardian, the Russians are preventing the evacuation of civilians after the collapse of the Nova Khakovka dam. Russian troops control the dam area, and the village of Oleshky, in particular, seems to have suffered the most in the area under Moscow’s jurisdiction. The Kremlin is accused of blocking volunteers and anyone who wants to help rescue civilians, and that the percentage of civilians evacuated by the authorities is currently small. A choice that may have arisen from tactical-military motivations, but that endangered all civilians in the area.
And the warning may soon be humane. Ukraine could lose millions of tons of crops due to flooding caused by the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam in the Kherson region. This is an alarm launched by the Ministry of Agriculture of Ukraine, and in a note “it is impossible to grow vegetables without a water supply”, “grains and oilseeds will be grown using a low-yield comprehensive model”. The collapse of the dam flooded fields, but also risked turning at least 500,000 hectares of unirrigated land into “deserts”. A dynamic that could resonate everywhere, potentially even here.
Continue reading at Today.it
Source: Today IT
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
