Russia and Ukraine made conflicting claims Sunday on who controls the territory close to Blahodatne within the jap a part of the Donetsk area.
Russia’s Wagner mercenary army group claimed it took management of the village, whereas Ukraine’s army stated its troops had repelled the assault.
“Units of Ukraine’s Protection Forces repelled the assaults of the occupiers within the areas of … Blahodatne … within the Donetsk area,” the Normal Workers of Ukraine’s Armed Forces stated in its every day morning report, referring to combating on Saturday.
Ukraine stated its forces additionally repelled Russian assaults in areas close to 13 different settlements within the Donetsk area.
However the Wagner Group, designated by the US as a transnational prison group, stated on the Telegram messaging app on Saturday that its models had taken management of Blahodatne.
The French information company experiences there was no speedy affirmation from Russia’s protection ministry.
With warfare intensifying within the Donetsk area, the precise battleline has been unclear, particularly across the city of Bakhmut, the place heavy combating has been occurring in latest weeks. The Wagner Group has made untimely success claims earlier than.
Ukraine has stated that Russia has not taken over Bakhmut, however that the state of affairs alongside the entrance line there was rising diffiult. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated on Friday that it was acute.
4 civilians have been killed, one in Bakhmut, and 17 wounded in Russian assaults on the area on Saturday, Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk area stated on the Telegram messaging app.
Again to the USSR?
Away from the battlefield, the British protection ministry stated Sunday in its every day intelligence replace on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that the return of fundamental army coaching in Russia’s secondary faculties highlights an more and more militarized ambiance in Russia.
The coaching for secondary faculties turns into obligatory in September. Russia introduced comparable obligatory coaching for college college students in December.
The return of the army curriculum into Russian faculties, the British ministry stated, is probably going a deliberate “evocation of the Soviet Union,” which had the same army curriculum for faculties.
Ukraine’s Nationwide Safety and Protection Council chief, Oleksiy Danilov, advised RFE/RL that Moscow was getting ready for a brand new offensive on February 24, the anniversary of the Russian invasion.
“Now they’re getting ready for max activation … they usually imagine that by the anniversary they need to have some achievements,” Danilov stated. “There is no such thing as a secret that they’re getting ready for a brand new wave by February 24, as they themselves say.”
Some info for this report got here from The Related Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
