The Russian army conquered several towns in the east of Ukraine within the framework of the offensive to take control of the Donbas region, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense announced on Wednesday.
Russian forces dislodged the Ukrainian army from Velyka Komyshuvakha and Zavody in the Kharkov region and took control of Zarichne and Novotoshkivske in the Donetsk region.
Zarichne is just 50km from the regional center of Kramatorsk, where dozens of people were killed weeks ago in a Russian attack on a train station.
Moscow had announced this month that it would withdraw its forces from around the capital kyiv to focus its military effort on capturing Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine.
The Defense Ministry warned that Russian forces “continue the offensive in the direction of Nyzhnye and Orikhiv” in the central region of Zaporizhia.
Pro-Russian separatists have controlled the Donetsk and Lugansk regions since 2014, when the Kremlin annexed the Crimean peninsula after protests brought down the Moscow-friendly Ukrainian ruler.
Russia has said the offensive in the east would create a land link between the separatist-held territory and the Black Sea peninsula.
Russia destroyed “large quantity” of weapons delivered to Ukraine by Western countries
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that it destroyed a “large quantity” of weapons supplied to Ukraine by the United States and European countries, during a bombardment in the southeast of the country.
“Hangars with a large amount of foreign weapons and ammunition, delivered to the Ukrainian forces by the United States and European countries, were destroyed by high-precision Kalbir missiles, fired from the sea at the Zaporizhia aluminum factory,” in southeastern Ukraine. Ukraine, the ministry said in a statement.
I do not know what weapons were destroyed in the attack.
The Russian military also claimed that it had carried out bombings against 59 targets in Ukraine.
Of these, 50 housed troops and four were ammunition stores.
The announcement comes after representatives of some 40 countries met in Germany on Tuesday, invited by the United States, to discuss how to strengthen Ukraine’s defense.
The United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Czech Republic initially refused to supply offensive weapons to kyiv, but have changed their position.
For its part, the Ukrainian army acknowledged on Wednesday that Russian forces were advancing in the east of the country, taking several towns in the Kharkov region and Donbas. At the moment, the Russian Ministry of Defense did not comment on this information.