2023-07-27 19:31:00
Ukraine says it has retaken a village near the southern front line as the army intensifies the counteroffensive
Ukrainian soldiers in the Ukrainian town of Staromaiorske, in a screenshot from a video released Thursday by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. (Credit: Volodymyr Zelesnky/Telegram/Archyde.com)
Both Russian and Ukrainian sources report heavy fighting along the front lines in the southern Zaporizhia region, where Ukrainian forces are intensifying their efforts to break through entrenched Russian defenses.
Late this Thursday, a video appeared of a Ukrainian unit claiming to be in the town of Staromaiorske -targeted for several weeks-, located east of the city of Zaporizhia.
A group of soldiers posted the video, with one of them saying the Ukrainian fighters had “accomplished the task and liberated the village.”
The video was republished on the Telegram account of the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, with the caption: “Our south! Our boys!”
This same Thursday, the commander of a Russian-backed battalion of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic acknowledged the loss of Staromaiorske.
Kyiv troops “methodically” seized the village over the course of several days, “pulling personnel out of their dugouts and turning those dugouts into piles of broken bricks,” the commander, Alexander Khodakovsky, said. He acknowledged that losing the area was “a blow to our military ego.”
Fighting intensifies in the south: In addition to compromising additional brigades to the fight in the southIn the past, the Ukrainian military has maintained a campaign to degrade Russian logistics centers, with Russian-appointed officials in the occupied areas reporting several rocket attacks on the city of Tokmak, a critical resupply site.
“Tokmak has essentially become a frontline city, because the intensity of hostilities directly on the Zaporizhia front line towards Tokmak is increasing every day,” the Ukrainian mayor of nearby Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, told CNN.
Fedorov claimed that Moscow troops “suffer constant losses” in the villages near Tokmak.
Few front-line testimonies have appeared, but a member of the Freedom for Russia Legion – a militant group of Russian dissidents fighting against Moscow – said the battles are relentless.
“In a word, it’s hell,” the fighter, Kostyantyn Denysov, told RFE/Radio Liberty. “There is small arms fighting all along the line of contact, counter-battery fighting.”
But, he claimed, Ukrainian troops are “stubbornly pressing the occupiers, driving them out, clearing and gaining ground.”
Denysov said that Russia has responded with artillery and aviation barrages. His priority is to prevent the Ukrainian advance towards Tokmak and other towns near the city of Zaporizhia, including Vasylivka, to the south, and Polohy, further east of the city.
Denysov stated that some Russian units have suffered “so many losses that now they are waiting to be resupplied”.
Two weeks ago, a Russian high command in the area was destitute for requiring the Ministry of Defense to rotate units out of front line positions.
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