|
In response to
"A Russian fighter jet crashes into a home in Siberia, killing the two pilots."
by
crash davis
|
Russian attacks are seen as an attempt to stretch Ukraine’s resources.
|
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — Cruise missiles and drones have again struck deep into Ukrainian territory, continuing an intense Russian campaign to damage Ukrainian energy supplies across the country as its forces were also hitting targets with rocket and artillery fire along the length of the front line.
With winter weather closing in, Russia and Ukraine are locked in heavy exchanges of fire all across the front in increasingly urgent attempts to make gains big or small while they can. Russia’s renewed attacks have been seen as part of an attempt by Moscow to broaden pressure around the country to stretch Ukraine’s defense abilities and resources.
Even as Ukrainian military authorities point to signs that Russian forces had started to move military equipment out of the southern city of Kherson, where their positions have become increasingly tenuous, Moscow has maintained an aggressive stance in the eastern Donetsk region and escalated artillery attacks in northern Ukraine.
Russian troops made concerted assaults on the towns of Bakhmut and Avdiivka in the Donetsk region, the Ukrainian military command announced Saturday evening. The two towns have long been at the center of fighting as Russia has sought to extend its control of Donetsk, with Ukrainian troops putting up dogged resistance.
In the south, both sides have struck deep behind each other’s lines, but the fighting has not moved in recent days. In the north, Ukrainian officials said Russia fired multiple rockets and mortars on Saturday on at least six settlements in the Sumy region, where Russia withdrew in April and which has largely been spared attacks since.
Ukrainian officials also reported strikes on Russian targets. The Ukrainian mayor of Enerhodar, an occupied town near the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, reported a strike on a hotel in the town Sunday morning.
“It was loud again in Enerhodar,” the mayor, Dmytro Orlov, said in a post on the Telegram messaging app alongside a photo of a building burning.
Mr. Orlov said he could not confirm if there had been casualties in the strike but added that it was known that Russians and Ukrainian officials working with the Russians used the hotel.
It was not possible to independently verify the report, but part of the Ukrainian campaign against Russian forces has been to target military positions and command headquarters in Russian-held territory to force a retreat.
Russian rocket and artillery fire killed eight people and wounded 19 on Saturday, Ukrainian officials reported. Two of the dead were killed in strikes in the Zaporizhzhia region and six in strikes in the Donetsk region. Russia unleashed widespread attacks on power plants and heating stations in what Ukraine said were some of the heaviest strikes in weeks.
“The geography of this new massive strike is very wide,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address on Saturday.
He told Ukrainians that Russia was targeting Ukraine’s energy supplies because it was losing ground on the battlefield and he urged Ukrainians to use electricity sparingly and prepare for blackout.
“Our defense forces have everything they need to defend the country and are pushing forward every day,” the president said, “I emphasize: every day.”
— Carlotta Gall and Oleksandr Chubko
|