Ukraine: Moscow claims new gains before two years of offensive

Russia claimed Thursday new territorial gains in Ukraine against à a Ukrainian army on the defensive and which suffers from shortages of weapons, two days of the second anniversary of the Russian offensive against kyiv.

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.

“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, around the villages of 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 army Ukrainian forces did not immediately confirm the loss of Pobeda, ensuring they were fighting “in the area”.

“In the Mariïnka sector, the defense forces continue to hold back the enemy in the areas of Georgiyivka, Pobeda and Novomykhailivka,” the commander of Ukrainian forces in the region, Oleksandr Tarnavsky, said on Telegram.

– Series of demands –

Russia had already claimed on Tuesday the recapture of the village of Krynky (south), on the occupied bank of the Dnieper, where the Kiev army had difficulty building a bridgehead in October, one of its only advances after the failure of its summer counter-offensive.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris on February 16, 2024 © POOL – Thibault Camus

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 symbolic victory for Russia.

As February 24 marks the 2nd 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 the bombings.

Ukrainian forces are finding it all the more difficult to repel attacks as they are suffering from a shortage of ammunition due to drying up Western aid, particularly that from Washington, blocked by President Joe Biden's Republican rivals.

Ukraine: positions of military forces © AFP – Valentin RAKOVSKY, Sophie RAMIS, Sylvie HUSSON

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 (south).

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 Ukrainian region of Donetsk.

– North Korean missiles –

At the same time, the services Ukrainian security agencies (SBU) on Thursday accused Russia of using North Korean-made missiles to carry out deadly strikes in Ukraine against civilian targets.

“We let's talk about ballistic missiles of the Hwasong-11 (KN-23/24) type”, indicated the SBU, specifying that these strikes had killed “at least 24 civilians” and left more than a hundred injured.

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.

Besides Kiev, South Korea South and the United States argue that North Korea is sending weapons to Russia to support its assault in Ukraine. Moscow rejects these accusations.

Russia suffered significant losses according to Ukraine, but it had more men and superior weapons after having turned its entire economy towards the war effort.

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