Photo: Anatolii Stepanov Agence France-Presse Ukrainian soldiers move to a new position on the front line near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.
February 23, 2024
Russia claimed new territorial gains in Ukraine on Thursday in the face of a defensive Ukrainian army suffering from weapons shortages, two days before the second anniversary of the Russian offensive against Kiev.
In its daily report, the Russian Ministry of Defense assured that the army had seized the village of Pobeda, not far from the destroyed town of Mariïnka, itself located near Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine.
“The units of the Southern grouping of forces liberated the village of Pobeda,” he said, also assuring that the Russian army had improved its positions in the same area, on the outskirts of the villages from Novomykhaïlivka and Krasnogorivka.
Since the capture of Mariïnka at the end of December, a Ukrainian stronghold reduced to ashes after months of resistance and intensive bombardments, the front was largely unchanged in this sector.
The Ukrainian army did not immediately confirm the loss of Pobeda, saying it was fighting “in the area”.
“In the Mariinka sector, the defense forces continue to hold back the enemy in the areas of Georgiyivka, Pobeda and Novomykhailivka,” the commander of the Ukrainian forces in the region, Oleksandr Tarnavsky, said on Telegram .
Russia had already claimed Tuesday the recapture of the village of Krynky (south), on the occupied bank of the Dnieper, where the Kiev army had difficulty built a bridgehead in October, one of its only advances after the failure of its summer counter-offensive.
The Ukrainian army, for its part, denied having lost control of Krynky. “Our marines firmly hold the beachhead,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram on Thursday.
Above all, Moscow's claim on Thursday comes after the conquest, announced last weekend, of the town of Avdiïvka, a fortress town in eastern Ukraine which resisted Russian forces, a victory symbolic for Russia.
As February 24 marks the second anniversary of the outbreak of the large-scale attack on Moscow, Ukraine finds itself in an “extremely difficult” position on the front, Volodymyr Zelensky admitted on Monday.
Russia attacks and tries to push its advantage: the Ukrainian army faces multiple Russian assaults on both the Eastern and Southern fronts and suffers under bombardment.
The Ukrainian forces are finding it all the more difficult to repel the attacks as they are suffering from a shortage of ammunition due to Western aid which is drying up, in particular that from Washington, blocked by rivals Republicans of President Joe Biden.
But the Ukrainian army does not remain inactive. She claimed Thursday “to have killed or seriously injured” around sixty Russian soldiers by striking, the day before, a training ground in the occupied part of the Kherson region.
This strike was corroborated by Telegram channels from Russian military experts close to the army, who had also reported a bloody strike on Tuesday against another Russian military field near the town of Volnovakha , in the occupied part of the Donetsk region of Ukraine.
At the same time, the Ukrainian security services (SBU) on Thursday accused Russia of using North Korean-made missiles to carry out deadly strikes in Ukraine against civilian targets.
“We are talking about ballistic missiles of the Hwasong-11 (KN-23/24) type,” the SBU said, adding that these strikes had killed “at least 24 civilians” and injured more than a hundred.< /p>
Russia and North Korea have made a spectacular diplomatic rapprochement in recent months. Leader Kim Jong-un visited Russia in September to meet with President Vladimir Putin, who in turn is expected to visit Pyongyang.
In addition to kyiv, South Korea and the United States maintain that North Korea is sending weapons to Russia to support its assault in Ukraine. Moscow rejects these accusations.
Russia suffers significant losses according to Ukraine, but it has more men and superior weapons after having turned its entire economy towards the war effort.< /p>
A new poll conducted by the Léger firm suggests that compared to last fall, a greater number of Canadians want the federal government to send more ammunition and other military supplies to help the Ukraine in its war against the Russian invasion.
A quarter of those surveyed late last week said Canada should increase its support for Ukraine in the form of military supplies, up from 20% in October 2023.
The Canadian government has said it will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes to end the war. He also promised billions of dollars in military aid, but opinions on how much Canada should spend appear divided.
While 25% of respondents said aid should increase, 23% called for Canada to send fewer munitions to Ukraine and 34% said Canada should maintain its current efforts.
The survey was carried out among 1,529 Canadian adults, but we cannot give it a margin of error, because online surveys are not considered a truly random sample.
The Canadian Press
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