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Ukrainian soldiers in the Kharkiv region
Photo: Not credited / dpa
The Ukrainian army says it has once again repelled dozens of Russian attacks along the front line in the east and south of the country. In the evening report of the General Staff in Kiev, there was talk of 71 battles – a slight decrease after 82 battles on Friday. The battles on the ground are accompanied by artillery shelling and air strikes.
For example, Russia attacked Ukraine on Saturday night with several swarms of combat drones. There was an air alert over the eastern part of Ukraine shortly before midnight. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that the aircraft loaded with explosives were moving in several waves towards the capital Kyiv, as well as the regions of Cherkasy, Zaporizhzhia, Kirovohrad and Mykolaiv. Kyiv's air defense is deployed, Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on Telegram.
On the day, according to Ukrainian data, most Russian assaults were again carried out in the city of Avdiivka and its environs in the Donbas, with 27 battles. They had been repelled, it was said without details. Russian troops have been trying for weeks to cut off Ukrainian defenders in the city, which has been held since 2014. In the process, they suffer heavy losses, but advance solely due to the superior number of soldiers and technology. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in the United States also spoke of Russian territorial gains in its report on Friday.
In the Kupyansk sector of the front, further north in the Kharkiv and Luhansk regions, the Ukrainian military counted eleven battles near the village of Synkivka. There, too, according to ISW assessments, Russian troops have been on the offensive for days and are making gains in terrain.
Other focal points were the Bakhmut and Maryinka sections as well as the town of Robotyne in the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia. For some time now, there has been no mention of Ukraine's own offensive actions in the reports. After the widespread failure of the summer offensive, Kiev's troops are now gearing up for defense. Ukraine has been fending off the Russian war of aggression for almost 22 months now. Including the Crimean peninsula, about one-fifth of Ukraine's territory is occupied by Russian soldiers.
czl/dpa