Assaults on key town of Avdiivka continue as Putin visits Russian military headquarters for progress report on offensive.
Russian forces have intensified their attacks on key points of the front line as they go on the offensive in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s general staff reported late on Thursday that its military had repelled Russian assaults across the front earlier in the day, including around the strategic eastern towns of Avdiivka and Bakhmut as Moscow’s forces become more active following Kyiv’s counteroffensive over the summer.
Russian forces have intensified their attacks on key points of the front line as they go on the offensive in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s general staff reported late on Thursday that its military had repelled Russian assaults across the front earlier in the day, including around the strategic eastern towns of Avdiivka and Bakhmut as Moscow’s forces become more active following Kyiv’s counteroffensive over the summer.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, in an account of the day’s fighting, said Ukrainian forces shelled the town of Skadovsk in a Russian-occupied area of the southern region of Kherson. The report said there were dead and wounded in the attack. Russia’s Ministry of Defence also reported strikes on Ukrainian troops and equipment near Bakhmut.
Elsewhere, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said on Friday that Ukrainian forces damaged two small Russian landing boats in Crimea during an overnight attack using sea drones.
The statement said the vessels were crewed and loaded with armoured vehicles. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear.
Meanwhile, the news agency RIA quoted Russia’s Defence Ministry as saying its air defences had brought down two Ukrainian drones over Crimea and one over the Tula region south of Moscow.
Reports from both the Russian and Ukrainian sides could not be independently confirmed.
As the fighting continues, Putin assessed the state of his country’s forces in Ukraine during his overnight visit to the Southern Military District headquarters in Rostov-on-Don. Video shared by a Russian state news agency showed him being greeted by Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff, late on Thursday.
Putin was “introduced to new types of military equipment” and was informed about the progress of the war, his spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, according to the Russian state news agency Tass.
The Russian president made the visit on the way back from a trip to Kazakhstan, where he aimed to cement ties with Russia’s former Soviet neighbour and major economic partner in the midst of tensions with the West over Ukraine.
Source : Aljazeera
