Conflicts & War

Ukraine claims Russia ready to carry out major offensive in east

Kyiv, Apr 11 (EFE).- The Ukrainian army said Monday that the Russian forces were completing their preparations for a major offensive in eastern Ukraine amid a massive military build-up in the regions bordering the war-ravaged country.

“Measures are being taken to regroup, increase the command and control system and logistics. The occupiers are moving battalion tactical groups from the eastern and central military districts to the border areas of Belgorod, Voronezh and Kursk regions,” the Ukrainian army high command said in a Facebook post.

In another post, the Ukrainian army said Russian forces also continued their offensive in the eastern Donetsk region and the city of Mariupol, besides creating an “offensive group” in the central Dnipro region.

It said the Russian forces were likely to resume their offensive in the Slobozhansky area of the Dnipro region.

“(Russia) continues to train and send personnel, weapons, and equipment to participate in hostilities in Ukraine,” the military said.

In Donetsk, the Russian forces continued their efforts to seize critical areas amid their aggressive military campaign to capture the strategic coastal city of Mariupol near the Azov and the Black Sea.

The Ukraine military said the Russians used artillery and aerial strikes to storm the Azovstal plant, one of the biggest metallurgic units in Europe, and the Mariupol seaport.

The US-based Institute for the Study of War said the Russian forces “made territorial gains in Mariupol in the past 24 hours” and continued reinforcing operations along the Izyum-Slovyansk axis.

The Russian forces bisected Mariupol from the city center to the coast Sunday, isolating the remaining Ukrainian defenders in the southwestern port and eastern Azovstal steel plant.

The Ukrainian army warned that the Russian armed forces might resort to provocations in the Transnistria region of Moldova.

In the Slobodskaya direction, separate military units continued to partially block the city of Kharkiv amid artillery shelling of certain parts of the city. EFE

Maxar Technologies satellite imagery captured hundreds of Russian vehicles in Kharkiv Oblast redeploying to support Russian operations near Izyum, said the ISW.

int-lab/ssk

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