The secret services of the British Ministry of Defense said on Sunday that Moscow had already lost a third of its ground combat forces deployed to invade Ukraine in February.
According to a daily report from British Defense, the Russian offensive in the Donbas has “lost momentum, has been significantly delayed” and Russia has failed to gain territory over the past month. “Under the current conditions, Russia is unlikely to significantly accelerate its advance in the next 30 days.”
But it is important to remember that, with greater or lesser intensity, the battles for the capture of Lugansk and Donetsk are still going on, regions the Kremlin wants to annexsimilar to Crimea in 2014. On Sunday alone, Russia carried out about a dozen shellings with heavy artillery in Severodonetsk, the second largest city in the Luhansk region, local authorities said. cited The newspaper “New York Times.
“In Severodonetsk, the Russians are intimidating the population and destroying houses. There are more people who want to run,” the governor of the region wrote on Telegram. Sergei Gaidai also said that in recent days a wave of shelling has affected a school, a hospital, a chemical plant and several residential buildings. The governor counts two deaths in the “historic quarter” of the city.
As the battle for Donbass drags on, losses accumulate in the armies of both sides. Russian soldiers unsuccessfully attempted to contain Kyiv forces resisting the defense of Severodonetsk and neighboring Lysychansk, a strategy weakened by recent loss of life and property in northeastern Ukraine following the capture of Kharkov. However, Ukrainians are turning their attention to the outskirts of Izyum, a still occupied city in the region.
According to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Russia plans to send up to 2,500 reservists to the war, who are still in service, to compensate for losses. Also, the possibility of using soldiers who are not from the Russian army representing Moscow, possibly mercenaries, is not ruled out.
Despite celebrating Ukraine’s victory in the country’s second largest city (Kharkiv), civilians remain trapped in the region’s villages, a few kilometers from the border, where resources are scarce and Russian attacks continue. In an interview with The newspaper “New York Times, one of the tenants who stayed in her house, assures that the latest Ukrainian counterattack did not stop the fire of Russian artillery. “We don’t see any improvement at all.”
At the opposite end of the country, in the west, several rockets hit a military facility in Lvov on Sunday. “Four enemy missiles hit one of the military infrastructure facilities Lviv region. The object was completely destroyed. According to preliminary information, there were no casualties. No one asked for medical help, ”the regional governor Maxim Kozitsky wrote on Telegram. According to the Regional Aviation Command of the Ukrainian Air Force, the missiles were fired from the Black Sea.
In Mariupol, the Azovstal plant continues to be shelled, with dozens of wounded soldiers still trapped in the complex’s underground tunnels. Since the beginning of the Russian siege of the plant, 15 members of the Azov battalion have died, Ukrainian journalist Nika Melokzerova guarantees, who says she spoke with one of the regiment commanders Svyatoslav Palamar this weekend.
At the end of the week, when the UN announced the opening of the investigation Alleged war crimes committed by Moscow forces in Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy regions, so that they can be documented and prosecuted by the International Court of Justice, the Ukrainian authorities announced that they were investigating at least ten crimes of sexual violence.
“Definitely this is a weapon in combat conditions,” said Deputy Interior Minister of Ukraine Kateryna Pavlichenko, quoted by Sky News. “We will take all steps to ensure that these crimes are documented and transferred to international organizations.”
