Russian forces are advancing faster in eastern Ukraine than they have in a long time, capturing several square kilometers a day, President Vladimir Putin said on Monday (2), as Moscow’s forces try to break through a key Ukrainian defensive line.
Russian forces, which control 18 percent of Ukraine, have been advancing in eastern Ukraine since Kiev’s failed 2023 counteroffensive failed to achieve a major breakthrough.
Despite a major Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk region that began on August 6, the numerically stronger Russian army has been advancing relatively quickly in recent weeks through villages in eastern Ukraine, approaching the strategically important city of Pokrovsk.
“We haven’t had such a pace in the offensive in Donbass for a long time,” Putin told children at Secondary School No. 20 in Kyzyl, Tuva, about 4,500 km east of Moscow.
“Now we are not talking about advancing 200 or 300 meters… The Russian Armed Forces are already taking territories under control not by 200-300 meters, but by square kilometers.”
Pro-Russian military bloggers said on Monday that Russian forces were now fighting in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Selydove and Ukrainsk. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on the reported Russian advance.
Yuri Podolyaka, an influential pro-Russian military blogger born in Ukraine, said intense fighting was underway in Selydove, about 20 km south of Pokrovsk, and in Ukrainsk, about 14 km south of Selydove.
He said both sides were pushing forces into battles for the cities, which had populations of more than 20,000 and 10,000 people respectively, before the full-scale war began in February 2022.
Pro-Russian blogger Rybar also said fighting was taking place in both towns. Russia’s state news agency TASS reported that Ukrainian forces had been driven out of part of Selydove.
By advancing south towards the town of Kurakhivka, Russian forces are trying to break through Ukrainian defensive lines and at the same time increase their dominance over the Pokrovsk-Donetsk highway and encircle a part of the territory, Russian bloggers said.
Russia has been trying to push Ukrainian forces out of the southern Kursk region after the August 6 Kiev incursion, which was designed in part to pressure Russian generals to mobilize forces from elsewhere on the eastern front in Ukraine.
Here’s what we know about Ukraine’s incursion into Russian territory
This content was originally published in Putin says Russia is advancing rapidly in eastern Ukraine on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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