Russia gains in east before Trump-Putin summit, Ukraine says holding off

Zelenskyy decries Russia’s effort to summation battlefield borderline pre-US acme maintains its service is holding backmost ‘occupier’.

Russia has made gains successful Ukraine’s Donetsk portion before  President Vladimir Putin’s high-stakes gathering with his United States counterpart Donald Trump successful Alaska, raising fears that it whitethorn person accrued its leverage amid talks aimed astatine ending the war.

In beforehand of Friday’s summit successful Anchorage, Moscow’s service pounded distant astatine Ukraine’s concern heartland, attempting to prehend the flashpoint municipality of Pokrovsk, a cardinal road and obstruction junction successful eastbound Donetsk, aft repeated attempts to breach its antiaircraft enactment during the week.

As Putin and Trump prepared to meet, battlefield investigation tract DeepState said that Pokrovsk was partially encircled. In caller days, Russian forces had reportedly seized the colony of Yablunivka and the colony of Oleksandrohrad – some successful Donetsk.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has rejected Putin’s demands that Kyiv retreat from the remaining 30 percent of Donetsk that it inactive controls, played down the Russian advances, saying connected X that his forces were “countering” and “increasing the pressure” connected the “occupier”.

“The Russian service continues to endure important losses successful its attempts to unafraid much favourable governmental positions for the Russian enactment astatine the gathering successful Alaska. We recognize this program and are informing our partners astir the existent situation,” helium said.

Reporting from Kyiv, Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford said that “small groups of Russian forces” had “pushed done gaps successful Ukrainian antiaircraft lines successful that area, taking astir 10 kilometres [6.2 miles] of territory”.

Russia illegally annexed Donetsk successful 2022, on with Luhansk, some of which signifier the eastbound Donbas region, Kherson and Zaporizhia areas.

Attacks traded successful run-up to summit

In different warring connected Friday, Russia launched a ballistic rocket into Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, sidesplitting 1 and wounding astatine slightest 1 different person, according to determination politician Serhiy Lysak.

The metropolis of Dnipro is simply a logistics hub for Ukrainian forces, and the Dnipropetrovsk portion borders the combat portion and is regularly shelled by Russian forces.

Also connected Friday, Ukraine’s subject said it had struck the Syzran lipid refinery successful Russia’s Samara region, 1 of the biggest successful lipid institution Rosneft’s network, successful an overnight attack.

Samara’s determination politician said a drone onslaught caused a occurrence astatine an unspecified “industrial enterprise” successful his region, but that it had been enactment retired quickly.

The Ukrainian subject besides said it struck the Caspian larboard of Olya successful Russia’s Astrakhan portion connected Thursday, hitting a vessel that had been transporting drone parts and ammunition from Iran to Russia.

Facing regular Russian rocket and drone attacks, Ukraine has directed the bulk of its heavy strikes against Russian lipid refineries and unspecified “storage facilities” this year, according to caller General Staff information published connected Friday.

The Ukrainian subject did not corroborate if it utilized drones, arsenic usual, for its latest 2 long-range attacks. It says its heavy onslaught run aims to degrade Russia’s capableness to wage the full-scale warfare it launched successful February 2022.

Some 535 Russian drones and missiles rained connected Ukraine during the week of August 7-13. Ukraine intercepted conscionable nether two-thirds of them, and Moscow’s forces launched 8 missiles against Ukraine, 5 of which got done its defences.

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies