2023-07-16 22:40:32
7/17/2023-|Last update: 7/17/202302:22 AM (Mecca time)
Anna Malyar, Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense, said that the situation has worsened somewhat in the east, and that Russian forces are advancing in the Kobyansk axis in Kharkiv province, northeastern Ukraine, while Russian President Vladimir Putin said that all Ukraine’s attempts to penetrate his country’s defenses during the counterattack failed.
The Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine stated that her country’s forces are now in a defensive position in the Kobyansk axis, amid fierce Russian attacks for the second day in a row, she said.
The Ukrainian official added that the locations of the Ukrainian and Russian forces change dramatically several times per day.
Ukraine regained control of a large part of Kharkiv province last September, while Russian forces currently control a small strip of land there.
In Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine, two local officials said that a man was killed and several people were injured, Sunday, in Russian bombing of a southern district of Kharkiv.
Kharkiv Governor Oleh Sinhopov said earlier Sunday that a fire broke out due to Russian bombing, adding that medics had taken 3 men wounded by shrapnel to a hospital and treated another at the site.
The mayor of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekhov, said that the city was bombed twice by Russia on Sunday.
Putin’s remarks
On Sunday, the Russian president said that all attempts by Ukraine to penetrate his country’s defenses during the counterattack had failed.
Putin added that his forces did not need to use cluster munitions, but if they were used once morest them, they would have the right to do so, and they possess sufficient stocks of them.
He indicated – in an interview on Russia Today channel – that Washington resorted to providing Kiev with cluster munitions due to a shortage of ammunition, noting that the United States often described the use of cluster munitions as a crime.
In this context, the US National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, announced – in an interview with the American network “CNN” – that the American cluster munitions had already arrived in Ukraine, adding that the provision of these munitions came as compensation for the lack of 155 mm shells, which require some time to produce.
In a statement to Al-Jazeera, Serhiy Kozan, adviser to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, said, “Everything is going according to plan regarding the Ukrainian counter-attack,” explaining that the cluster bombs that Kiev received from Washington “will be used once morest military targets away from civilian areas.”
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry adviser pointed out that Russian forces have been using cluster munitions since 2014.
Donetsk front
And the pro-Russian Donetsk authorities (eastern Ukraine) announced the death of a civilian and the wounding of 3 others in Ukrainian bombing of neighborhoods in the cities of Donetsk and Makievka.
The same authorities said that the Ukrainian forces bombed the city of Makievka with heavy artillery, killing a woman, noting that the Koyishovo neighborhood, west of Donetsk, was shelled with Grad missiles, and the northern neighborhoods of the city were shelled with artillery, which left 3 civilians injured and material damage to homes and infrastructure.
On Sunday, the governor of the Russian Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said that a woman was killed and others were injured in a Ukrainian bombing that targeted the central market in the Chebykino region, and storefronts in the area were also damaged.
According to the district governor, Belgorod was hit by regarding 90 Ukrainian shells during the past 24 hours.
Belgorod is a Russian province bordering the Ukrainian province of Kharkiv.
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