(CNN) — The Ukrainian army repelled Russian advances in Donetsk over the weekend as the bloody battle for control in the eastern Donbass region continues.
At least eight settlements in the eastern part of Donetsk were attacked from Saturday to Sunday. Most of the settlements straddle a territory on the road leading west from the Luhansk region towards the industrial cities of Donetsk, according to Ukraine’s military.
“Ukrainian soldiers competently repelled another combat reconnaissance attempt near Berestove and Bilohorivka,” the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff said, adding that Russian forces were “firmly repulsed, suffered losses and withdrew.”
As Russian forces fire on Ukrainian positions in Donetsk in preparation for the next stage of large-scale fighting in the war, the country’s Defense Ministry in Moscow on Saturday ordered commanders to take measures to prevent Ukrainian attacks on Ukrainian-held territory. Russia.
“(Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu) gave the necessary instructions to further increase the groups’ actions in all operational areas to exclude the possibility of the Kyiv regime launching massive rocket and artillery attacks on civilian infrastructure. and residents of settlements in Donbas and other regions,” the ministry said in a statement.
Shoigu visited Russian forces involved in what the ministry has long described as the “special military operation in Ukraine,” the statement added.
The order comes in response to a sharp increase in Ukrainian attacks deep behind the front lines using western howitzers and artillery recently purchased.
Russian forces struggle to advance in Donetsk region, despite Ukrainian casualties.
The Ukrainian army resists the Russian advances
After the Russian forces captured the last city in the Luhansk region that was still in Ukrainian hands, Lysychansk, intensified the shelling of towns and cities in the neighboring Luhansk region. Donetsk.
The Russian military has maintained a persistent barrage of artillery and missile strikes across the region for several weeks. The Kremlin says the goal of what it calls the “special military operation” is to take control of Luhansk and Donetsk. Some 45% of Donetsk, a region of heavy industry interspersed with farmland, is still in Ukrainian hands.
But they are under pressure from three directions: east, north and south.
Russian forces are also firing on Ukrainian positions south of the town of Bakhmut, according to the General Staff, including air and missile strikes, as well as artillery.
Three missiles hit the Toretsk community, but there was no information on casualties, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the military administration of the Donetsk region. In the town of Kostiantynivka, the Russians had bombed the medical college, Kyrylenko added. He also urged civilians in the area to evacuate.
For its part, the Russian armed forces have claimed “high-precision attacks” that “resulted in the elimination of the 115th Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) that had operated towards Siversk.”
The area around Siversk has been hotly contested in the last two weeks, but Ukrainian forces appear to be holding out.
Further north, the city of Kharkiv has been hit by missiles once more, Ukrainian officials say. Two missiles hit a five-story industrial building and caught fire, said Oleh Syniehubov, head of the military administration of the Kharkiv region.
“Russia is fighting”
As the war in Ukraine approaches five months and both militaries suffer heavy losses, Western officials say Ukraine “absolutely” believes it will take back territory from Russia and win the war.
“They are absolutely clear that they plan to restore the entirety of their territory in terms of Ukraine, and they see a Russia that is fighting, a Russia that we assess has lost more than 30% of its ground combat effectiveness,” the head of the military told the BBC. United Kingdom Defense Staff, Admiral Tony Radakin, this Sunday.
“What that really means is that 50,000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded in this conflict, almost 1,700 Russian tanks destroyed, almost 4,000 armored fighting vehicles belonging to Russia (were) destroyed.
“And what you’re looking at is a Russia, if we focus on Donbas, that’s less than 10% of Ukraine’s territory and we’re approaching 150 days, and Russia is having a hard time taking that territory, and it’s costing them because of courage. and the determination of the Ukrainian armed forces.
“Russia started this invasion with the ambition to take all of Ukraine, Russia had the ambition to take the cities in the first 30 days, Russia had the ambition to create fractures and put pressure on NATO, this is Russia as a challenge to the world order Russia is failing in all those ambitions, Russia is a more diminished nation than it was at the beginning of February,” Radakin added.
The UK has been one of the strongest backers of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and the country’s war effort.
But the Ukrainians are spread out along a vast front line from the Black Sea to the northeastern border with Russia, more than 1,000 kilometers long. Despite a steady stream of Western weapons, Ukraine remains heavily outmatched by large numbers of Russian artillery, missile batteries, and mortars.
Very little ground has been gained or lost this month by either side, and Western analysts see the conflict turning into a harsh war of attrition.
CNN’s Julia Kesaieva reported from Kyiv, Tim Lister, Darya Tarasova and Sana Noor Haq wrote from London. Rob Picheta contributed to this story.