Russian Defense Minister: further terrain gains
Published: Tuesday, Feb 27th 2024, 14:20
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Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has spoken of the capture of several towns in eastern Ukraine. "Last week, the Ukrainian armed forces were driven out of the towns of Pobyeda, Lastochkyne and Severne," he said at a meeting of the ministry in Moscow on Tuesday.
He put the area gained by the Russian army since the beginning of the year at 327 square kilometers. This corresponds to around a fifth of the area of the canton of Zurich. The Russian figures could not initially be independently verified.
On Monday, the Ukrainian army admitted a retreat to new defensive positions west of the industrial city of Avdiivka, which had been captured by Russia. According to Dmytro Lykhoviy, spokesman for the grouping in the south-east, the new line should run along the villages of Berdychi, Orlivka and Tonenke.
Shoigu was confident of victory after the storming of Avdiivka. The Russian troops improved their tactical positions both in the area and in the north of Ukraine near the district town of Kupjansk, said the 68-year-old. Ukraine has been losing 800 soldiers a day since the beginning of the year, he claimed. The total Ukrainian losses since the beginning of the war amounted to 444,000 soldiers, he said. However, these statements cannot be verified independently. Most recently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi put the number of Ukrainian losses at 31,000.
In fact, the Ukrainian military has come under pressure in recent months. While Russia has ramped up its arms production, the supply of weapons and ammunition from the West has slackened. Due to the ongoing shelling of its entire territory, Ukraine is finding it difficult to establish large-scale arms production itself. Russia currently occupies around a fifth of Ukraine's territory, including the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which it has annexed since 2014.
©Keystone/SDA
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