The presidential office in Kiev said he presented the soldiers with medals. Zelenskyj also visited the city of Kharkiv in the north-east of the country and presented Mayor Ihor Terekhov with the insignia of a “hero city of Ukraine”.
With the award, Selenskyj acknowledged the residents’ resistance to Russian attacks in the previous year. “Thanks to the citizens, this beautiful city, together with other cities, defends our independence,” he said, according to the Unian news agency. Kharkiv had stopped the Russian attack in the extreme east of Ukraine in heavy fighting that cost both sides. In May of the previous year, the Russian units were pushed out of the immediate vicinity of the city in the course of a Ukrainian counter-offensive.
Order for the defenders
A few hours earlier, the Ukrainian head of state had distributed medals to the defenders near the heavily contested city of Bakhmut. “I am honored to be here today to present awards to our heroes. To shake their hands and thank them for protecting the sovereignty of our country,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram.
Image: (APA/AFP/UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SER/HANDOUT)
In the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, which has been heavily fought over for months, the defenders say they have fended off new attacks by Russian troops. As the general staff in Kiev said on Wednesday evening, Russian units had tried to close the pincers around the city from the north and south. “The enemy continued his efforts to capture the city, with significant losses of troops and weapons,” wrote the general staff in Kiev on Facebook in its daily situation report. In the meantime, a “decrease in attack momentum” by the Russian forces had become apparent. The information might not be independently verified.
The British Ministry of Defense had previously reported that the dynamics of Russian attacks near Bakhmut were declining, citing intelligence findings. In addition, Ukrainian troops had provided relief with their own advances, it said.
Bild: (APA/AFP/ARIS MESSINIS)
Russia has been at war with neighboring Ukraine for more than a year. Along with Crimea, which was annexed to the Black Sea peninsula in 2014, Moscow annexed a total of five Ukrainian regions in violation of international law.
