Kiev, Ukraine (AP) – Russian forces suffered heavy casualties in a Ukrainian attack that destroyed a pontoon bridge used to cross a river to the east, Ukrainian and British officials say , another sign of battle for Moscow. To save a broken war.
The process began after Russia’s attack on the Donbas, the eastern industrial center of Ukraine, which increasingly turned into a destructive war.
The Ukrainian Airborne Command has released photos and video showing a damaged Russian pontoon bridge over the Siversky River in Donetsk and several destroyed or damaged Russian military vehicles nearby. The command said its troops had “strangled the Russian occupiers”.
The UK Defense Ministry said Russia had lost “major armor maneuvering elements” in an attack by at least one battalion tactical group last week. The tactical group of the Russian battalion consists of about 1000 soldiers.
“Crossing the river in a disputed environment is an extremely dangerous maneuver and indicates pressure exerted by Russian commanders to make progress on operations in eastern Ukraine,” the ministry said in a statement.
Elsewhere, Finland and Sweden’s possible move to join NATO were questioned when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country had “no favorable opinion” on the idea. He accused Sweden and other Scandinavian countries of supporting Kurdish militants and others whom Turkey considers terrorists.
Erdogan did not directly say that he would prevent the two countries from joining NATO. But the military alliance makes decisions by consensus, which means that each of its 30 member states has the right to veto who can join.
NATO’s expansion would be a huge blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched the war because what he said was an attempt to block the alliance’s advance towards the east. But after the invasion of Ukraine, other countries on Russia’s side feared they were next.
After Ukraine asked for more weapons to prevent the invasion, the EU foreign minister announced plans to give Kiev an extra 500 million euros ($ 520 million) to buy heavy weapons.
Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksky Reznikov praised the heavy weapons that reached the front line, but acknowledged that no quick end to the war was seen.
“We are entering a new long -term phase of war,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “We have very difficult weeks ahead. How much is this? No one can say for sure. “
For Donbass, the battle escalated from village to village, back and forth, with no significant victories anywhere and little progress.
Intense fighting continues on the Donetsk River near the city of Severodonetsk, says Oleh Zhdanov, an independent Ukrainian military analyst. The Ukrainian army launched counterattacks but did not stop Russia from advancing, he said.
“The fate of a large part of the Ukrainian army is being decided – about 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers,” he said.
The Ukrainian military chief of the Donbass Lugansk region said on Friday that Russian troops had fired on residential areas 31 times the previous day, destroying dozens of houses, mainly in the villages of Hirske and Popasnyansk and the Rubizhne bridge.
In the south, Ukrainian officials have announced another victory in the Black Sea and claimed that their forces had withdrawn a Russian logistics ship trying to provide an anti-aircraft system. However, there was no confirmation from Russia and no casualties.
In the ruined southern port of Mariupol, Ukrainian fighters trapped in an iron mill faced Russia’s ongoing attack on the city’s last stronghold of resistance. Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of Ukraine’s Azov regiment, said his troops would last “as long as possible” despite the lack of ammunition, food, water and medicine.
Justin Kramp, a former British tank commander who is currently a security consultant, said Moscow’s losses had forced it to reduce its targets in Ukraine. He said the Russians need to hurry to use coherent units that do not train together.
“It’s not fast. So we lived for at least the summer of the battle. “I think the Russian team knew it was going to take,” he said.
In the case of the first war crimes, announced in court, a Russian sergeant. Vadim Shishimarin, 21, could be sentenced to life imprisonment if, on February 28, four days after the attack, a Ukrainian man was shot in the window of a car in the village of Northeast Sumy on the 28th. February.
Ukrainian Attorney General Irina Venediktova said she was preparing war crimes cases against 41 Russian soldiers, including bombing of civilian infrastructures, killing of civilians, rape and theft. It is not yet known how many suspects are in the hands of the Ukrainians and how many will be tried in absentia.
In a small courtroom in Kiev, several journalists witnessed the start of the war trial, which was closely monitored by international observers to ensure the trial was fair.
Defendant, who was wearing a blue-gray hood and gray sweatpants, sat in a small glass cage during the trial, which lasted about 15 minutes and would resume on Wednesday.
Shishimarini was asked several questions, including whether he understood his rights and whether he wanted a jury trial. He rejected the latter.
His Ukrainian-appointed lawyer, Viktor Ovsyannikov, acknowledged that the case against Shishimarin was solid and did not say what the soldier’s protection would be.
Shishimarin, a member of a tank unit captured by Ukrainian forces, admitted to shooting a civilian in a video posted by the Ukrainian security service and said he was ordered to do so.
At the start of the war, teachers were trying to restore normalcy after the fighting closed schools in Ukraine and disrupted the lives of millions of children.
In Kharkov, the second largest city in Ukraine, classes are held at the metro station, which has become home to many families. The children joined their teacher around Valerie Leiko’s desk to learn about history and art, pictures of the young people lined up on the walls.
“Only now did he find out. Because now there is war and many are homeless. “… Some parents are fighting right now,” Leiko said. Partly because of the lessons, he said, “they felt someone loved them.”
Senior student Anna Fedoriaka followed the professor’s online lectures on Ukrainian literature, admitting that: “It’s hard to concentrate when you have assignments that explode in the windows.”
Jessica Fish in Bakhmut, Yura Karmanau in Lviv, Mstislav Chernov in Kharkov, Yari Tanner in Helsinki, Elena Bekatoros in Odessa and other AP staff around the world contributed to this report.
Source: Huffpost
