ATTACKS
In the 24 hours to Sunday morning, Russian forces targeted more than 30 towns and villages across Ukraine, launching five missile and 23 air strikes and up to 60 rocket attacks, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on Sunday.
In response, Ukraine’s air forces carried out 32 strikes, hitting 24 Russian targets.
Fighting is particularly intense in the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, and the strategically important Kherson province in the south, three of the four provinces Putin proclaimed as part of Russia last month.
Shelling by Ukrainian forces damaged the administration building in the city Donetsk, capital of the Donetsk region, its Russian-backed administration said on Sunday.
Kirill Stremousov, a Russian-installed official in the Kherson region, said on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday that Russian forces had quashed an offensive by Ukrainian troops in the area and that the situation there was “under control”.
Ukraine’s Southern Command said its forces’ positions had come under repeated attack on Saturday and a small “shooting battle” had taken place near the village of Tryfonivka in the Kherson region.
Russian forces also fired nearly 20 Russian-made Grad rockets on the right bank of the Dnipro River in the Kherson region, it said.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday its forces had killed more than 50 Ukrainian soldiers and destroyed five tanks near the Kakhovka Reservoir on the Dnipro River.
Reuters was not able to independently verify the battlefield reports.
Although Ukrainian troops have recaptured thousands of square kilometres of land in recent offensives in the east and south, officials say progress is likely to slow once Kyiv’s forces meet more determined resistance.
Ukrainian forces and civilians are relying on Starlink Internet service provided by Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket company. Musk said on Friday he could no longer afford to fund the service but on Saturday said he would continue to do so.
Zelenskyy said almost 65,000 Russians had been killed so far since the Feb 24 invasion, a figure far higher than Moscow’s official Sep 21 estimate of 5,937 dead. In August the Pentagon said Russia has suffered between 70,000 and 80,000 casualties, either killed or wounded.
Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said on Telegram on Sunday that Ukraine would prevail in the war because of the continued military aid it is receiving from the West and the cumulative impact of Western sanctions on Russia’s economy.
“Ukraine’s offensive is strategic and the defeat of Russia is inevitable,” Yermak said.
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