Ukrainian troops say Russia has driven them out of 2 more eastern villages
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces have overrun two front-line villages in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, a Ukrainian army sergeant said Monday, after relentless assaults that are part of a Kremlin summer push to overwhelm battlefield defenses there.
“They pressed nonstop” to capture Vovche and Prohres, the chief sergeant of Ukraine’s 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade, Oleh Chaus, told Radio Svaboda. “They sent in a large number of troops, which had not previously been used.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed in recent days that it had taken control of the villages, but the Ukrainian General Staff made no official comment.
The villages lie about 20 miles northwest of Avdiivka, a Donetsk city that the Russian army seized in February after a long battle. That victory was the Kremlin’s last major triumph in the war that is now in its third year.
Ukraine says Russian forces have captured five villages as part of a renewed ground assault in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
Russia’s onslaught, fueled by its heavy advantage in soldiers and weaponry, has repeatedly forced the Ukrainians to pull back from defensive positions to avoid being captured or killed.
Oleksandr Shyrshyn, the 47th brigade’s deputy battalion commander, confirmed to local media that the villages had been taken. He blamed poor training of troops, low abilities of officers, a lack of motivation and inadequate weapons for the setbacks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky late Sunday described the situation in the Donetsk region as “extremely challenging.”
Russia’s strategy of attritional warfare, with powerful glide bombs smashing Ukrainian defenses before infantry move in, has brought incremental gains for the Kremlin as it seeks another big breakthrough.
Ukraine is significantly outgunned by Russia’s bigger army on the roughly 600-mile front line.
Ukraine’s army has pulled out from a village in the eastern Donetsk region, surrendering another front-line position to Russian forces.
Russian troops are also intensifying their weeks-long drive to breach Ukrainian defenses around Pokrovsk, a town of around 60,000 people before the war, the Ukrainian General Staff said Monday.
Russia launched 52 attacks there over the previous 24 hours — almost twice the daily number in recent weeks, it said.
Meanwhile, Russian air defenses thwarted a nighttime barrage of 39 Ukrainian drones over five of the country’s regions, Russian authorities said Monday.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the drones were “intercepted and destroyed” in regions bordering Ukraine as well as in the Leningrad region roughly 430 miles north of the Ukrainian border. A power plant, a bridge and a power line were damaged by drone debris, it said.
Ukraine has employed high technology in its campaign of increasingly ambitious drone strikes deep inside Russia that target critical infrastructure in an attempt to make the fighting more costly for Moscow and hinder its war machine.
Kullab writes for the Associated Press.
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