WA few weeks before the start of the third year of the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj thanked his soldiers and promised them good equipment. “The top priority of our state is to always provide everything necessary for the defense of Ukraine and our active operations,” he said in Kiev. He named ammunition, drones, equipment and enough personnel.
“Surviving this year means surviving the entire war,” he said in his evening video address on Friday. Ukraine has been defending itself against a large-scale Russian invasion since February 2022. Saturday marks the 682nd day of the war.
On Saturday night, Russia again used combat drones against Ukraine. The Ukrainian Air Force tracked their flight across the country. Around midnight, the Zhytomyr area west of the capital Kiev was particularly threatened. In Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that five Ukrainian drones had been intercepted over the Black Sea. The military reports could not be independently verified. The target of a Ukrainian attack could have been the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014.
Kiev General Staff reports fighting on the ground
The General Staff counted 57 attempted Russian infantry attacks on Friday on the approximately 1,000 kilometer long front in the east and south of Ukraine. That was a little more than in the past few days. In the front-line town of Avdiivka in Donbas, which has been particularly hotly contested for weeks, the Ukrainian defenders repelled three attacks and another 16 in the immediate area. Russian troops also tried to improve their position near the almost completely destroyed small town of Mariinka in the Donetsk region, it said.
Overall, the course of the front has hardly changed for a long time. The British Ministry of Defense also came to this conclusion in its report on Friday, based on intelligence information. The Russians have made minor progress in places. “Over the past week, ground fighting has been characterized by either a static front line or gradual, local advances by Russia on key sectors of the front,” it said.
In the northeast, Russian troops continued a “large but inconclusive offensive” near Kupyansk, the British wrote on Platform X (formerly Twitter). In the north of the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, Ukraine held its front line despite smaller attacks around Bakhmut. The city of Avdiivka remains heavily contested, while the Russians in the small town of Maryinka have extended the gains they made at the end of December.
Zelenskyj thanks his partner Türkiye
In a conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Zelensky emphasized Turkey's role as a partner in the Black Sea region. “We have joint projects that have already been successful; “And this year we must do even more to strengthen our states and our people,” Zelensky said after a phone call with Erdogan. Security in the Black Sea as well as the world's food supply depended on Ukrainian-Turkish cooperation.
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