Russian forces carried out almost 400 artillery strikes against Ukrainian positions in the eastern Donbas region on Sunday, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“The fiercest battles, as before, are in the Donetsk region. Although there were fewer attacks today due to worsening weather, the amount of Russian shelling unfortunately remains extremely high,” the Ukrainian premier said in one of his regular video addresses to the nation.
He put the number of artillery strikes in the east at “almost 400” — but also noted that Ukrainian forces were still “slowly moving forward while fighting” in the Luhansk region of Donbas, which unlike the Donetsk region the Russians had previously brought almost entirely under their control.
While the Russians abandoned their northern offensive towards Kyiv (Kiev) in the first stage of the war, have been routed from the Kharkiv (Kharkov) region, and withdrawn from Kherson in southern Ukraine in recent days, they have tried to keep up at least some offensive operations in the Donbas, with British intelligence suggesting they are still making “tactical advances” there in October, at least in places.
UK Intel: Russian Forces 'Riven by Poor Junior and Mid-Level Leadership', 'Cover-Up Culture' https://t.co/0mBWuEoOXu
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 20, 2022
Ukrainian state media, citing a post by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on their official Facebook page on Monday morning, said Russian attacks on the Bakhmut, Bilohorivka, Kurdiumivka, Marinka, Novomykhailivka, Pervomaiske, Pidhorodne, Spirne, Stelmakhivka, and Yakovlivka settlements of Donetsk region had all been repelled by “our warriors”, and that total Russian fatalities were now approaching 85,000.
Such claims by either side in the Ukraine war are nigh-impossible to independently verify, however.
Russia, for its part, highlighted an alleged “high-precision strike by the Russian Aerospace Forces in the city of Zaporozhye [Zaporizhzhia] at the Motor Sich defence enterprise [which] destroyed a workshop for assembling engines for aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force” in their Sunday update on the conflict on Telegram, declaring, without supporting evidence: “Our cause is right. Victory will be ours!”
Crumbling Ukrainian Energy Infrastructure Blasted by Another Barrage of Russian Missiles, Drones https://t.co/xFwjrAGYnE
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 17, 2022
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