Russia steps up attacks near Kurakhove in eastern Ukraine
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Ukrainian soldiers unloading artillery shells brought by their battalion commander to their position in the Pokrovsk region of Ukraine, on Sept 10.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
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KYIV – Russian forces focused their assaults in eastern Ukraine near the embattled town of Kurakhove on Sept 13 as Ukrainian troops tried to hold the line at a critical juncture of the war, Kyiv said.
The Russians also pressed towards Ukraine’s rail hub of Pokrovsk, about 33km north of Kurakhove, in an attempt to open new lines of attack, disrupt Ukrainian logistics and take control of the rest of the eastern Donetsk region, 2 ½ years on from Russia’s invasion of its neighbour.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has praised his troops for holding their positions in Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, the two most difficult sectors in the east.
Ukraine’s forces are stretched thin, but the military said they had repelled 64 assaults near Kurakhove in the past day, the most intense fighting there in September.
The Ukrainian military also reported repelling 36 attacks near Pokrovsk on the same day.
Together, the action on these fronts accounted for more than two-thirds of about 140 clashes reported along more than 1,000km of front lines in the north-east, east and south of the country in the last day.
Kyiv launched a cross-border assault into Russia’s Kursk region in early August in the hope of diverting forces from the eastern front.
The Ukrainians made rapid initial gains before stalling, while the situation around Pokrovsk has remained perilous.
In Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, a Russian guided bomb attack on Sept 13 killed two people and injured six others, including a four-year-old child, the local authorities said.
Ukraine used Sumy, which borders Kursk, as a staging ground for its incursion into Russia in August.
The settlement of Yampil, about 20km from the border, was hit with four guided bombs, Sumy regional prosecutors said on the Telegram messaging app. The attack damaged residential houses and a clinic and cut power supplies, the regional military administration said. REUTERS
