WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Russia claims progress in battle for Bakhmut
Russia on Sunday said its forces had advanced in Bakhmut while a top Ukrainian commander said his troops were holding the frontline through the city, all but destroyed in some of the bloodiest combat of the 14-month war.
The Russian defence ministry said its forces had secured two blocks in western districts and airborne units were providing reinforcements to the north and south. Russia sees Bakhmut as a stepping stone to more advances in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi shared images on the Telegram messaging app of him poring over a map with three other uniformed men, with the caption "Bakhmut frontline. Our defence continues."
"We hit the enemy, often unexpectedly for him, and continue to hold strategic lines," he wrote.
Reuters was unable to verify battlefield reports.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the private Wagner military force which is leading the Bakhmut assault, has claimed 80% control of the city. Kyiv has repeatedly denied claims its troops are poised to withdraw.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed to keep defending the city.
"It is impossible for us to give up on Bakhmut because this will [help] expand the battle front and will give the Russian forces and Wagner chances to seize more of our lands," Zelenskiy said in an interview with Al Arabiya news channel published on Sunday.
Also on Sunday, the Russian-installed head of Ukraine's southern Kherson region denied a report by a U.S. think tank that Ukrainian forces had taken up positions on the Dnipro river's eastern bank.
"There is no enemy foothold on the left (eastern) bank of the Dnipro river ... our military completely controls that territory," Vladimir Saldo wrote on his Telegram channel.
Citing Russian military bloggers embedded with Moscow's forces, the Institute for the Study of War said Ukraine had "established positions" on the eastern bank, though it was not clear "at what scale or with what intentions".
Russia withdrew forces from the western bank last year as part of a series of withdrawals that signified a shift in momentum in Kyiv's favour.
Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine's southern command, neither confirmed nor denied the report, which she told Ukrainian television foreshadowed "very powerful shelling" in districts around the west bank cities of Kherson and Beryslav.
"Reacting to such information, the enemy has significantly intensified its attacks on the opposite bank," she said. Civilians had been injured and about 30 buildings destroyed, including a school, she said.
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Multiple civilians killed and injured as Ukraine shells Donetsk
Ukrainian forces subjected the city of Donetsk and its immediate vicinity to artillery and multiple rocket launcher fire on Sunday. The attacks left at least three civilians dead and damaged houses and infrastructure, according to local officials.
The westernmost Petrovsky District of the city, which gets targeted by Ukrainian troops on an almost daily basis, appears to have been worst-affected, with multiple hits registered in the area. One civilian was killed and five others injured, according to the city’s mayor, Alexey Kuzmin.
The shelling targeted exclusively residential areas of the district, with no military targets in sight, as footage shared online by the mayor shows. The shelling damaged at least two residential houses, with debris hitting a local arts school, shattering windows and damaging its entrance. Nine other residential houses and a bus depot were damaged elsewhere across the city, the mayor reported.
In a separate incident, a civilian was injured by the notorious and internationally-banned PFM-1 ‘petal’ mine. The mines, poured by Kiev’s forces onto the city through rocket-propelled cluster munitions, have claimed 112 civilian victims, including ten children, amid the ongoing conflict, according to a local monitoring group. Three of the PFM-1 victims succumbed to their injuries.
Two women were killed in the city of Makeyevka, located immediately to the north of Donetsk. The city was subjected to multiple rocket launcher fire, with at least five projectiles hitting its residential areas. Disturbing footage of the incident, circulating online, shows victims walking by the side of the road, apparently hearing the incoming projectile and trying to take cover. The rocket, however, hit straight in the middle of the road, shredding the women with fragments.
The Donetsk People’s Republic was incorporated into Russia last October, together with the People’s Republic of Lugansk and the formerly-Ukrainian Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions, following referendums in which the local populations voted overwhelmingly in favor of the move.
** Russian assault teams liberate two areas in Artyomovsk’s west
Russian assault teams liberated two areas in Artyomovsk over the past day during the special military operation in Ukraine, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Sunday.
"In the Donetsk direction, assault teams liberated two areas in the western parts of the city of Artyomovsk in the past 24 hours," the spokesman said. "The Russian Airborne Force units rendered support to the assault teams in the northern and southern districts of the city".
Reuters/RT/TASS
