Ukrainian forces pull back under fierce Russian pressure in Zaporizhia

Ukrainian Army reports thousands of artillery shells fired arsenic Russians beforehand successful southeastern Zaporizhia region.

Ukraine’s apical subject commandant has conceded that the army’s concern has “significantly worsened” successful parts of the confederate Zaporizhia region, wherever Ukrainian forces person withdrawn from 5 villages aft aggravated warring against Russian troops.

News of the setback successful Zaporizhia successful southeastern Ukraine comes arsenic Russia said earlier connected Tuesday that its forces had pushed deeper into the eastbound Ukrainian cities of Pokrovsk and Kupiansk.

Recommended Stories

• list 1 of 4Russia-Ukraine war: List of cardinal events, time 1,357
• list 2 of 4Russian troops beforehand connected Pokrovsk, Ukraine
• list 3 of 4Russia says Ukrainian-British crippled to hijack hypersonic rocket foiled
• list 4 of 4Russia ‘will respond successful kind’ to atomic tests by immoderate country: Lavrov

Video footage published by Russian warfare bloggers shows Moscow’s troops riding motorcycles, travelling successful battered cars and sitting connected apical of subject vehicles arsenic they poured into Pokrovsk, which Russian media has dubbed “the gateway to Donetsk” owed to its strategical location.

“Using its numerical superiority successful unit and materiel, the force precocious successful fierce warring and captured 3 settlements,” the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrskii, said of the warring successful Zaporizhia connected Tuesday.

“The concern has importantly worsened successful the Oleksandrivka and Huliapole directions,” Syrskii said successful a statement.

The Ukrainian Army said earlier that orders to retreat from 5 villages successful Zaporizhia were fixed aft the “de facto demolition of each shelters and fortifications” pursuing intensive Russian artillery strikes. An estimated 2,000 shells were launched astatine the Ukrainian positions.

Control of 3 different villages is besides being hotly contested betwixt Russian and Ukrainian forces northeast of the municipality of Huliapole successful Zaporizhia, according to the Ukrainian Army.

Syrskii said that Russian forces successful Zaporizhia had utilized poor upwind conditions to their advantage, advancing nether dense fog to infiltrate betwixt Ukrainian positions successful the region. But helium added that Russian forces suffered dense losses during their attacks.

“Every metre of our onshore costs Russia hundreds of subject lives,” helium said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was visiting the parts of the confederate Kherson portion not occupied by Russia connected Tuesday, described the concern successful Pokrovsk and Zaporizhia arsenic “difficult, successful portion due to the fact that of upwind conditions that favour the attacks”.

The battlefield concern successful Kupiansk was “somewhat easier”, helium said, adding that Ukrainian forces had “achieved results there”.

Russia has been threatening Pokrovsk for much than a year, utilizing a pincer question to effort to encircle it and endanger proviso lines.

Syrskii told US media that Russia has concentrated an estimated 150,000 troops successful a thrust to instrumentality Pokrovsk.

Russia and Ukraine person fixed conflicting accounts of the conflict successful caller days, with Moscow claiming for days that it had encircled Pokrovsk, portion Kyiv has denied the claims and asserted that it inactive had proviso lines to neighbouring Myrnohrad.

Russia besides said its forces person taken afloat power of the eastbound portion of Kupiansk successful Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, located to the northeast of Zaporizhia and Pokrovsk.

A Russian commander, who gave his telephone motion arsenic Hunter, said his forces had taken power of an lipid depot connected Kupiansk’s eastbound edge. In a video connection issued by Russia’s Ministry of Defence, the commandant said his forces had besides taken power of a bid of bid stops southbound of Kupiansk.

Military observers person noted a thinning of Ukraine’s beforehand lines owed to a terrible shortage of soldiers and monolithic Russian drone superiority, which has led to advances successful respective locations on the beforehand enactment successful the much than three and a fractional years of war.