Ukraine prepares for new Russian attacks on Donbas.
Ukraine was preparing on Monday for a new Russian attacks into the eastern Donbas region after Kiev said its military counterattack around Kharkiv had gained momentum.
Since failing to take the capital early in the aggression in late February, control of the Donbas has become one of Moscow’s main objectives – but Western intelligence has predicted that its campaign will be stuck between heavy losses and fierce resistance.
“We are preparing for new Russian attempts to attack the Donbas, to somewhat intensify its movement in southern Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a speech overnight.
“The occupiers still do not want to admit that they are at a dead end and their so-called ‘special operation’ has already gone bankrupt,” he added.
Presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych told that Russian troops were being transferred to the Donbas after withdrawing from Kharkiv after the Ukrainian counter-offensive.
Kiev troops have made so much progress in the northern region that they have almost reached the border with Russia, according to Internal Affairs Ministry adviser Vadim Denisenko, although air strike sirens sounded in the city of Kharkiv early on Monday.
Arestovych said withdrawing Russian forces were being sent to Luhansk.
“Their task is to take Severodonetsk,” he said. “Well, something is not working for them.”
Severodonetsk is the easternmost city still held by Ukraine, and its fall would give the Kremlin de facto control of Luhansk, one of the two regions – along with Donetsk – that make up Donbas.
But Russia’s attempt to cross a river to encircle it had been repulsed with heavy equipment losses, according to Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai. For its part, the Russian defense ministry claimed to have struck four artillery depots in neighboring Donetsk.