Russians are dying like flies: Ukraine as troops capture Svyarodonetsky

Kyiv: Ukraine said on Thursday (June 9, 2022) that its forces are maintaining their positions in intense fighting in the eastern city of Svyarodonetsk and targeting gains in the largest area seized by Russia since the invasion began, The land in the south is occupied.

Russia concentrated its invasion force around Svyarodonetsk, a small industrial town that has now fallen into ruins. Ukraine says its only hope of turning the tide to victory is more artillery to undermine Russia’s heavy firepower.

Sveriodonetsk and its twin city of Lisichansk are the last Ukrainian-controlled parts of Luhansk province on the opposite bank of the Siversky Donets River, which Moscow is determined to seize as one of its major war objectives.

“They (Russians) are dying like flies … a fierce fighting continues inside Svyerodonetsk,” said Luhansk governor Serhi Gaidai.

Gaidai predicted that the Russians would try to take advantage of the low water level to cross the Siversky Donets River. “We’re watching and we’ll take proactive action if anything happens.”

In the south, where Moscow is trying to impose its rule on the occupied territory spread across the Kherson and Zaporizhzhya provinces, Ukraine’s defense ministry said it had captured new ground in the Kherson province in a retaliatory strike.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an evening address that in Ukraine “there have been some positive developments in the Zaporizhzhya region, where we are succeeding in disrupting the plans of the occupiers.” He did not give details.

Reuters could not independently confirm the situation on the ground in Zaporizhzhia or Kherson. Russian-established proxies in both provinces say they are planning a referendum on whether to join Russia.

Thousands have been killed and millions have fled since Moscow launched a “special military operation” to disarm and “deny” its neighbor on February 24. Ukraine and its allies call the invasion an unprovoked war of aggression.

‘we are staying’

Speaking in Moscow to mark the 350th anniversary of the birth of Russian Tsar Peter the Great, President Vladimir Putin drew a parallel between what he portrayed as his historical quests to win back Russian lands.

“Peter the Great waged the Great Northern War for 21 years. It seems that he was at war with Sweden, he took something from them. He took nothing from them, he returned (what was to Russia),” Putin said .

Petro Kusik, commander of Ukraine’s Svoboda National Guard battalion, said in a rare update from Svyarodonetsk that Ukrainians were attracting Russians to street fighting in order to neutralize Russia’s artillery advantage.

“Yesterday was successful for us – we launched a counter-attack and in some areas we managed to push them back a block or two. In others they pushed us back, but only by a building or two,” he said in a television interview. Told.

But he said his army was suffering from a “catastrophic” lack of counter-battery artillery to counter-attack Russia’s guns, and that obtaining such weapons would change the battlefield.

Svyerodonetsk mayor Oleksandr Streik said around 10,000 civilians were still trapped inside the city – a tenth of its pre-war population.

Reuters could not confirm the situation on the ground in the city.

To the west of Svyarodonetsk, Russia is pushing from the north and south, trying to trap Ukrainian forces in the Donbass region, including Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk province.

In Soledar, a salt-mining town near Bakhmut near the Front Line, buildings were detonated in the crater.

The remaining residents, mostly elderly, took refuge in a crowded basement. 65-year-old Antonina had gone out to see her garden. “We are living. We live here. We were born here,” she said. “When will this all end?”

cereal

Russian news agencies reported that in the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), one of Russia’s proxies in eastern Ukraine, a court sentenced two Britons and a Moroccan to death who were captured fighting for Ukraine. .

Britain dismissed the court’s decision as a “false decision” without any validity.

Ukraine is one of the world’s largest exporters of grain and edible oil, and in recent weeks international attention has focused on the threat of international famine, seen by Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.

“Millions of people could starve to death if the Russian blockade of the Black Sea continues,” Zelensky said in a televised comment on Thursday.

Moscow blames the food crisis on Western sanctions that restrict its own grain exports. It says it is ready to open Ukrainian ports for export if Ukraine removes the mines and meets other conditions. Kyiv calls such offers empty promises.

Turkey, a NATO power with good relations with both Kyiv and Moscow, has tried to mediate.

Russia is also trying to sell grain from areas of Ukraine it confiscated, activity Kyiv and West call loot.

Asked if there was an agreement to sell grain from southern Ukraine to Turkey or a Middle Eastern country, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “There is no agreement yet, work is on.”