2023-06-20 03:28:18
Hana Malyar, the Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense, said that the major blow that will be directed to the Russian forces inside Ukrainian territory has not yet come, while Moscow announced its control of a city in Donetsk Province, eastern Ukraine.
Maliar added, through her Telegram account yesterday, Monday, “The enemy will not easily abandon its positions, and we must prepare ourselves for a difficult confrontation… The army is moving according to plan, and the major strike is yet to come.”
After months of receiving qualitative Western weapons and training its forces inside and outside the country, Ukraine began two weeks ago the first phase of its counterattack aimed at regaining the lands that Russian forces had controlled since the start of the war once morest Ukraine at the end of February 2022, and these lands are estimated at one-fifth of the area of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister said that her country’s forces had regained the village of Pyatikhatki (southwest of Zaporizhia district in southern Ukraine), located in a heavily fortified sector of the front line with Russian forces near the closest direct roads to the coast of the Sea of Azov in the country.
Pyatikhatki is located regarding 90 km from the coast.
This came as part of Kiev’s progress of up to 7 kilometers inside the Russian lines within two weeks, during which it controlled 113 square kilometers of land.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address on Monday that his country’s army is advancing in some areas and seeking to repel intensified attacks in others. But he said the end result was in favor of Ukraine. Zelensky added, “We did not lose sites, but we liberated some of them. They only suffer losses.”
Also in Zaporizhia canton, Al-Jazeera correspondent reported hearing at least 10 explosions within one hour, and the attack coincided with drones flying in the area. Al-Jazeera’s camera monitored the moment rockets were launched from the direction of areas under Russia’s control in the province, of which Moscow controls part of its territory.
Donetsk province
And the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that its forces had fully taken control of the city of “Novodonetsk”, in the Donetsk region, and the ministry said that the Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian attack, and destroyed regarding 50 Ukrainian vehicles and tanks during the fighting.
The ministry published two video clips, which it said showed the control of its forces over the town, and the Ukrainian losses.
Russia said that it had repulsed many Ukrainian attacks and published a video clip showing what its forces say was confiscated Western equipment, and what it said was a French-made tank confiscated in Donetsk appeared.
For her part, the Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense said that her country’s forces continued to advance in the direction of Bakhmut, located in Donetsk, during the past week, despite the Russian reinforcements in the region.
It added that the Ukrainian forces thwarted Russian attempts to advance towards Liman Kobyansk, Avdiivka, and Marinka in the same province.
And the Ukrainian Air Force stated, on Tuesday morning, that Russia had launched missiles and drones at Kiev and the northern and southern regions of the country, and Ukrainian military officials said that the air defenses responded to this night attack.
Western weapons
Sergey Boyev, Ukraine’s deputy minister for strategic industries, told Archyde.com that his country is in talks with Western arms manufacturers to boost production of weapons, including drones, and that production may even take place inside Ukraine.
The Ukrainian official’s statement came on Monday during his participation in the Paris Air Show.
And French President Emmanuel Macron announced yesterday, Monday, that Ukraine had received and is now using a medium-range surface-to-air defense system, “SAMP / T”, made by Franco-Italian, and this came 4 months following Paris pledged to grant Kiev the system.
Paris had announced in early February that it would hand over this system to Kiev, equivalent to the American “Patriot” system.
The SAMP-T Mamba is supposed to help Ukraine deal with attacks from Russian drones, missiles and aircraft.
On the other hand, Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s first deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, said yesterday, Monday, that Moscow had requested a meeting of the UN Security Council on June 29 to discuss the issue of supplying Western weapons to Kiev and its impact on diplomatic efforts to resolve the current crisis.
Russia has repeatedly warned, through its Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, once morest pumping Western weapons into Ukraine, stressing that any shipment of weapons entering Ukrainian territory would be a legitimate target for Russian forces.
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