KIEV – Fighting raged in and around Bakhmut as Ukraine mocked Russian claims of capturing the executive center of the eastern Ukrainian city, saying that Russian forces had raised a flag of victory over “some form of toilet.”
Finland, which shares an 810-mile border with Russia, will join NATO on Tuesday, just over a yr after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, partly in response to what Russia said concerning the alliance’s aggressive eastward expansion.
The battle for the mining town and logistics center of Bakhmut was one among the bloodiest in the conflict, with heavy casualties on either side and town largely destroyed.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the commander of the Wagner mercenary forces spearheading the siege, said on Sunday that his troops raised a Russian flag on an administration constructing in town center, although Ukrainian soldiers were still holding some positions to the west.
However the Ukrainian military scorned the claim and said fighting was happening around town council constructing as well as in other nearby towns.
“Bachmut is Ukrainian, they’ve not captured anything and are very removed from it,” Serhiy Cherevatyy, a spokesman for the eastern military command, told Reuters.
“They raised a flag over some toilet. They fastened it to who knows what, hung a rag and said they’d taken town. All right, allow them to think they took it,” Cherevatyy added over the phone.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in a night statement that a complete of 45 enemy attacks had been repelled in the last 24 hours, with Bakhmut on the “epicenter of the operation” together with the towns of Avdiivka and Maryinka further south.
Reuters couldn’t confirm reports from the battlefield.
“WAITING FOR ORDERS”
On the sting of the Russian-controlled a part of Donetsk Oblast, Bakhmut had a population of 70,000 before Russia invaded Ukraine last February.
Bogged down in a war of attrition after a series of failures, Russian forces are in search of victory in their winter offensive but have suffered heavy casualties near Bakhmut.
Ukrainian military commanders said their very own counter-offensive – backed by newly delivered Western tanks and other equipment – was not far off, but stressed the importance of stopping Bakhmut and inflicting casualties in the meantime.
“The persons are ready for a counter-offensive, we are only waiting for the marching order and knowledge on which direction to go – Bakhmut, Soledar or wherever,” said a 35-year-old tank brigade soldier near Bakhmut, who used the pseudonym Poliot.
Russia fired 17 Iranian Shahed drones overnight, Ukraine’s air force command said on Tuesday morning, and its air defense systems destroyed 14 of them.
Yuri Kruk, head of the regional military administration in the Black Sea port city of Odessa, said several drones had hit the region and there was damage, but he didn’t specify the extent.
4 civilians were killed and three injured in Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk, its governor Pavel Kyrylenko said in a press release.
“DRIVING A WEDGE”
Russia calls its invasion of Ukraine a “special military operation” to rid it of the Nazis.
Tens of 1000’s of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers on either side died. Russia has destroyed Ukrainian cities and compelled hundreds of thousands of individuals from their homes, and claims to have annexed nearly a fifth of Ukraine.
The West calls the war an unprovoked attack to subjugate an independent country and has provided Kiev with weapons while in search of to punish Russia with sanctions.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the West of attempting to drive a wedge between Russia and China and of attempting to thwart Russia’s planned summit with African states. He also said that the European Union’s hostile stance towards Moscow meant that it had “lost” Russia.
Referring to this anger, the speaker of the Russian parliament said that Western leaders have blood on their hands for supporting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and this support has led to the creation of a “terrorist state” in the middle of Europe.
Vyacheslav Volodin, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, said the killing of outstanding war blogger Vladen Tatarsky in a weekend bombing in Saint Petersburg was a “terrorist act” committed by Kiev.
Ukraine blamed “domestic terrorism” for the outbreak.
NATO will welcome Finland as its thirty first member at a flag-raising ceremony at its headquarters on the outskirts of Brussels.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has prompted Finns to hunt safety under NATO’s collective defense pact, which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all.
Russia has also announced that it should strengthen its military capabilities in the western and north-western regions in response to Finland’s accession.