KYIV/BAKHMOUT, Ukraine (Reuters) – Russian forces shelled several localities in eastern and southern Ukraine on Tuesday, including around Bakhmout, a city in Donetsk province, and Svatove, further north in the province. of Luhansk, according to British military intelligence.
Donetsk and Luhansk (Lougansk in Russian), occupied by pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass mining basin, have been under Moscow’s control since 2014.
“Russia continues to carry out small-scale assaults in these areas (Bakhmout-Svatove-Editor’s note), but the positions have changed little,” reported the British Ministry of Defense on Twitter.
On images from Reuters, there are fires in a district of Bakhmout, debris in the streets. The windows of most homes were shattered.
During his daily video message on Monday evening, Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky considered the situation “difficult and painful” in the Donbass.
The Russian army, which has suffered a series of notable defeats since the launch of its “special operation” on February 24, is now aiming to conquer Bakhmout, an industrial city which had 70,000 inhabitants before the conflict and no longer shelters only some 10,000 residents, mostly elderly people.
If the lock of Bakhmout is broken, Russian forces will be able to advance towards the more important cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
“Our building is destroyed. There was a business in the building, there is nothing left”, testifies Oleksandr, 85 years old, last inhabitant of the dilapidated building, in Bakhmout.
At his side, Pilaheia, 73, says she got used to the din of explosions. “Now I don’t watch or listen to what’s going on. That’s how it is. But I want a normal life anyway,” she says as she feeds the chickens of her neighbours, who have fled.
In the past 24 hours, Ukrainian troops have repelled Russian assaults in two localities in Luhansk and six localities in Donetsk, according to the Chief of Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
He added that the Russian bombardments had increased in intensity in Kherson, in the region of Zaporijjia, and in communes of Kharkiv (north-east), near the Russian border.
On Monday evening, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated the Kremlin’s terms for a negotiated end to the conflict, in particular the attachment to Russia of a fifth of Ukrainian territory, occupied by the Russian army.
Kyiv, supported militarily by NATO, rejects Moscow’s demands.
(Reportage bureaus de Reuters, written by Gareth Jones, French version Sophie Louet, edited by Kate Entringer)