Ukraine has said it is containing the Russian military advance in the northeast of the country where the situation remains “extremely difficult” according to President Volodymyr Zelensky. Moscow is leading an offensive in this area which has allowed it to make its largest territorial gains since the end of 2022.
According to a senior NATO military official, American General Christopher Cavoli, Russian forces however “do not have the necessary forces to achieve a strategic breakthrough”. “They have neither the skills nor the capacity to do it,” the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe said Thursday evening.
Information to remember
⇒ Russia says it has neutralized 100 Ukrainian drones
⇒ Ukrainian strikes kill four people in Donetsk
⇒ The head of the Vovchansk administration injured in a strike
Moscow says it neutralized more than 100 Ukrainian drones in night attacks
Russia claimed to have destroyed or intercepted more than 100 Ukrainian drones overnight from Thursday to Friday, during attacks launched against the southwest of Russian territory and annexed Crimea. In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry detailed that it had neutralized 51 aerial drones attacking Crimea, 44 over the Krasnodar region, six over the Belgorod region and another over the Kursk region.
“During the night, naval aviation and patrol boats of the Black Sea Fleet destroyed six naval drones in the waters of the Black Sea,” the source added. The large city of Sevastopol, in Crimea, was “partly” deprived of power because a power substation was damaged by debris from downed drones,” Mikhail Razvojaïev, the local governor appointed by Moscow, said on Telegram. responsible, in a separate message, announced the temporary closure of schools and kindergartens in Sevastopol, due to these power cuts, according to him, repairs to the local electricity network could take “about a day”.
Ukrainian strikes kill four people in Donetsk, local authorities say
Four women were killed Thursday by Ukrainian strikes on Donetsk, a city occupied by the Russians, authorities set up by Moscow announced. Donetsk has been occupied since 2014 by Russian or pro-Russian forces and is located less than ten km from the eastern front line where intense fighting is taking place.
“Four women born in 1986, 1980, 1961 and 1952 were killed on Petrovsky Street near the School No. 106 public transport stop,” pro-Russian authorities said in a post on Telegram. The attack also left two injured, a child born in 2018 and a man born in 1987, while another strike on a neighboring town injured a septuagenarian, according to this source.
The head of the pro-Russian regional administration, Denis Pushilin, called the strikes “barbaric” on social media, blaming them on the Ukrainian army. kyiv did not immediately comment but generally denies targeting civilians in Donetsk and other regions occupied by Moscow in the south and east of the country.
Head of Vovchansk administration injured in strike
The head of the military administration of the Ukrainian city of Vovchansk, target of the Russian offensive in the Kharkiv region and currently at the heart of the fighting, was injured during a strike, the regional governor said. “The occupiers attacked a village in the Vovchansk community with cluster bombs […] Five people were injured, two doctors, two drivers and the head of the military administration of Vovchansk, Tamaz Gambarashvili, Oleg Synegubov said on Telegram, without giving details on the condition of the victims.
Ukraine accuses Russia of using civilians as ‘human shields’
Police in the Kharkiv region, the target of a Russian assault for a week, said Thursday that the Russian army was detaining 35 to 40 civilians in the town of Vovchansk, using them as “human shields” to protect a headquarters. military. “Civilians who were trying to flee the territory occupied by the Russians are in captivity. According to initial data, there are 35-40 of them. The Russians are holding them together in one place as human shields, because it is near their center of command,” the head of the regional police investigation department, Serguii Bolvinov, said on television.
“And we know that the Russians cynically shot an elderly man who was trying to flee into territory controlled by Ukraine,” he added, assuring that the man was shot in the head. These comments clarify those of the Minister of the Interior who had reported in the morning of civilians taken prisoner in Vovchansk by the Russians, as well as at least one summary execution.
Two dead in Ukrainian drone attack on Russian border town
A mother and her four-year-old child were killed in a drone attack on the village of Oktyabrsky, in the Russian border region of Belgorod, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced. A car in which four people were traveling was targeted by a drone, the mother died on the spot and her 4-year-old child died of his injuries in hospital, Vyacheslav Gladkov said.