Zelensky’s big statement, Russia intensifies attacks in eastern Ukraine… Bakhmut city destroyed

Kiev. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Russian forces have “destroyed” the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military also said on Saturday that Russia launched missile, rocket and airstrikes on several parts of the country it has been trying to conquer amid months of resistance. In this nine-and-a-half-month war, Russia’s attention has now focused on four provinces of Ukraine, which Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed to have captured last September.

The war indicates that Russia is facing difficulties in regaining control of those territories while Ukraine is determined to regain them. Zelensky said the situation was very difficult in several forward cities in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces. These provinces fall under the Donbas region, an industrial region bordering the Russian Federation. Putin’s focus has been on the region since the beginning of the war, where separatists have been fighting since 2014.

“Bakhmut, Soledar, Maryinka, Kremina,” Zelensky said in a video message released overnight. For a long time there is no habitable place left on the land of these regions that was not damaged by Russian shelling. Zelensky said that Russia had virtually “destroyed” Bakhmut, another town in the Donbass region. . Some buildings in Bakhmut are still standing and residents are still roaming the streets of the city.

Even before the attack from Moscow on this area, people here have been suffering from lack of water and electricity supply for several weeks. A Ukrainian military general reported 20 airstrikes and more than 60 rocket attacks and missile strikes by Russia between Friday and Saturday. Spokesman Alexander Shutpun said the most active fighting took place in the Bakhmut district, where more than 20 populated places came under shelling.

He said Ukrainian forces repelled Russian offensives in Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk. Ukrainian officials and analysts said Russia captured nearly the entire Luhansk region during last summer, followed by Donetsk. He said that now Russia has increased its forces and resources in recent weeks to lay siege to the city of Bakhmut. Ukraine’s military also reported attacks on Saturday in Kharkiv and Sumy in the northeast, Dnipropetrovsk in central Ukraine, Zaporizhia in the southeast and Kherson in the south.