Ukraine says Russians have failed to achieve objectives in the east
Lviv, Ukraine, May 19 (EFE).- The Russian military has not achieved its objectives in the last few hours, especially in the region of Donetsk in the east of the country, where it is now focusing its offensive, the Ukrainian army said Thursday.
“The Russian enemy does not stop conducting offensive operations in the Eastern Operational Zone. The main focus of the enemy is on the Donetsk direction,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in its latest report on Facebook.
“In the absence of mobilization resources in the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk oblast, the occupation military command plans to involve students of higher educational institutions in hostilities,” it added.
The Ukrainian armed forces repulsed 16 Russian attacks and destroyed eight tanks, 17 armored combat vehicles, four special armored vehicles and six vehicles in the pro-Russian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, according to the report.
Anti-aircraft missile units also shot down a Russian plane and a cruise missile, the report said.
The Ukrainian Air Force also attacked a contingent of Russian military equipment, destroyed around 20 armored vehicles and ammunition and killed an unspecified number of Russian troops.
The Ukrainian armed forces pointed out that Russian forces fired artillery and mortar on towns and cities in the partially occupied Chernihiv and Sumy regions, in the south of the country and launched a missile attack on the city of Desna, about 75 kilometers (47 miles) north of Kyiv.
On the Kharkiv front, in the northeast of the country, the main efforts of the Russian occupation forces were focused on maintaining their current positions and carrying out counter-attacks to recover the positions they had lost to the Ukrainian armed forces, the report said.
Some 260 Russian military personnel previously deployed on the Kharkiv front were transferred to replace the losses of the 107th Rifle Battalion – which has lost more than 50 percent of its soldiers -, near the Oleksandrivka settlement.
Russia has focused its efforts on controlling eastern and southern Ukraine to establish a corridor that allows its troops to move from these regions to the Crimean peninsula, which it has occupied since 2014.
Two days ago, the Russians took control, after a long siege, of the city of Mariupol, located along the Sea of Azov and part of the Donetsk region. EFE
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