War in Ukraine, day 802 | Russian army says it has taken control of a new village in the east

(Moscow) The Russian army claimed on Sunday to have conquered a new village in eastern Ukraine, Ocheretyne, a new sign of the push of Moscow’s forces against the Ukrainian army.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that its soldiers had “completely liberated” this village in the Donetsk region located northwest of Avdiivka, a town that fell in February.

In recent months, Moscow has regularly claimed control of small towns in the area.

On Thursday, his army claimed to have captured Berdytchi, also close to Avdiïvka.

The Ukrainian army has been on the defensive since the failure of its major counter-offensive last summer.

Russia has the initiative against an adversary which is struggling to recruit new soldiers and is faced with slowness in Western aid.

The resumption of American military assistance, after the validation at the end of April of a $61 billion aid plan for Kyiv, should allow Ukraine to consolidate its forces and attempt to stabilize the front, particularly in the is in the areas of Chassiv Iar and Avdiïvka.

Kyiv is all the more in difficulty because it lacks air defense means, which has allowed the Russians to bomb essential infrastructure, in particular the electricity network and railway lines.

The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Oleksandr Syrsky, recently admitted that the situation on the front had “deteriorated”.

Ukraine now fears that Russia will launch an even more powerful offensive in the coming weeks.

Russian rockets kill two, injure six

A Russian rocket attack on the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine killed two people, while a drone attack on the northeastern city of Kharkiv left at least six injured, local officials said on Sunday.

The latest attacks took place as Orthodox Christians in Ukraine and Russia were celebrating Easter.

“In Pokrovsk, rocket fire killed two people and damaged a house,” Vadim Filashkin, Ukrainian governor of the eastern Donetsk region, said in a message on Telegram.

The town of Pokrovsk is about 60 kilometers northwest of the city of Donetsk, the capital of the Russian-held region that Moscow claims to have annexed.

The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia fired 24 Iranian (Shahed) drones into its territory overnight, and 23 of them were shot down.

“A house and outbuildings burned following the “Shahed” attacks. Six people were injured, including a little girl born in 2015,” Kharkiv Governor Oleg Synegoubov said on Telegram.

In both Moscow and Ukraine, leaders used religion and the institution of the Church to rally society behind the war effort.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a video message on Sunday from Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, in the center of the capital.

Having swapped his usual military clothing for a traditional Ukrainian shirt, he called God “an ally” of Ukraine. “With such an ally, life will definitely conquer death,” he said.

Within the cathedral, an exhibition presents religious icons painted on ammunition crates.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin did not explicitly mention the war, which Russia calls a “special military operation,” in his Easter message.

In a public address to Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church who strongly supports Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Putin thanked him for his “fruitful cooperation in the current difficult period, when it is so important for us to unite our efforts for the constant development and strengthening of the homeland.”