In the 50th week of the war, clashes intensify along the eastern front lines, as Kyiv claims heavy losses among Russian troops.
Ukrainian troops appeared to have lost ground at the northern end of the 800km (500-mile) front, in Kharkiv – ground they had won back in a sweeping counteroffensive last September – where Russian forces claimed to have captured the settlements of Synkivka and Dvorchine.
Further south, Russian forces carried out a record number of artillery strikes from Kreminna in the direction of Lyman, Ukraine’s eastern forces spokesman said on February 3. A series of offensives followed, in which Russian military reporters claimed their country’s forces had pushed as far as Yampolivka, 16km (10 miles) west of Kreminna.
Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at the Center for Naval Analyses, a research organisation, wrote that the situation around Bakhmut “increasingly looks precarious for the Ukrainian Army, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they ultimately withdraw from the city”.
A three-day battle for Vuhledar culminated on February 6, when Ukraine’s military reported it had killed more than 1,000 Russian soldiers in a day, and destroyed 14 tanks and 28 armoured personnel carriers – an extraordinary toll. According to a Ukrainian reserves officer, some 30 of those vehicles were damaged or destroyed in the Vuhledar area.
Info@AlJazz
