The Ukrainian military has said its soldiers have advanced in the Donetsk eastern region, near the damaged Russian-held city of Bakhmut in the east and Vuhledar in the south, Brigadier-General Oleksii Hromov stated at a press conference.
“More than 100 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory have been retaken under control.”
He confirmed that Russian troops who invaded in February 2022 were driven out of seven communities in Donetsk’s east and Zaporizhzhia’s south.
He said that the Ukrainian army moved up to 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) near the village of Mala Tokmachka in the Zaporizhzhia sector and up to 7 kilometers south of Velyka Novosilka in the Donetsk sector.
“Our units and troops are moving forward in the face of fierce fighting and enemy aviation and artillery superiority,” Valeryi Shershen, a spokesperson for southern Ukraine’s Tavria military area, told Ukrainian television.
On Ukrainian television, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar stated that Ukrainian troops were pushing their advances of approximately 1 km surrounding settlements north and northwest of the city, “and progress has been made” and farther south near the port cities of Berdyansk and Mariupol on the Sea of Azov.
According to Maliar, around 4600 Russian soldiers were killed or injured in the previous week as a result of Caesar 8 artillery systems designed by a Danish manufacturer.
Russia, on the other hand, has not officially acknowledged Ukrainian advances and claims that Ukrainian troops have suffered serious fatalities, but Reuters has confirmed the liberation of at least two villages.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 marked a dramatic escalation of the eight-year-old conflict that began with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
