“I’m proud of them all”
Selenskyj visits contested front sections
09/05/2023 12:56 am
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The Ukrainian army is making progress in the south and east. President Selenskyj spends a day in the middle of the combat zone. Also to find out what the soldiers at the front are missing.
In the midst of the ongoing counter-offensive, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the Donetsk and Zaporizhia regions not far from the front. He praised the soldiers’ struggle to liberate the country as “heroic”. He spent the whole day with soldiers, said Zelenskyj in a late-evening video message recorded on the train. Accordingly, he visited various units. “Each one is strong. I’m proud of them all.” He did not provide any information about the exact locations. Accordingly, Selenskyj wanted to get an overview of the condition of the units and the situation at the front.
He’s heard problems. The insufficient staffing of some combat units and a lack of certain types of ammunition were also discussed. The talks also discussed the need for drones and weapons to counter enemy drones, as well as logistical aspects. “Our top priority is to meet their needs,” he said on Platform X (formerly Twitter) that night. Previously, videos published on his Telegram channel showed the President honoring soldiers with medals and signing flags. Zelenskyj also visited military doctors.
Meeting with Brigadier General Tarnavskyi
In the Zaporizhia region, he met the commanders of the troops who had recently breached Russian defenses, including Brigadier General Oleksander Tarnavskyi. The officer had said in an interview that the armed forces had broken through the first and most heavily secured Russian line of defense and were now moving towards the second line. Zelenskyy said: “Thank you for every step on the way to victory for Ukraine.”
Ukraine is fighting for its independence with Western military aid in the war that Russia started on February 24, 2022. In the counteroffensive, Kiev wants to liberate the Zaporizhia, Donetsk, Luhansk and Cherson areas, some of which are controlled by Moscow, from the Russian occupation. Another goal of Ukraine is to recapture the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014 in violation of international law.