Ukraine troops retake wrecked ruins of village south of Bakhmut
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (left) giving an award to a serviceman during a ceremony marking Tank Troops Day in Kyiv, on Sept 14.
PHOTO: AFP
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KYIV – Ukraine said on Friday that it has recaptured the devastated eastern village of Andriivka, setting the stage for further advances on the southern flank of Bakhmut, the city that fell into Russian hands in May after months of heavy fighting.
The Ukrainian General Staff said its troops were securing their foothold in the area, while Russian forces suffered significant casualties and lost equipment.
“In the course of assault operations, (Ukrainian troops) seized Andriivka in the Donetsk region,” the General Staff said.
The village of Andriivka lies south of Bakhmut, the site of the fiercest and longest battle since the invasion by Russia in February 2022. The General Staff also reported “partial success” near Klishchiivka, another village south of Bakhmut.
“Capturing and holding Andriivka is our path to a breakthrough on the right flank of Bakhmut and the key to the success of the entire further offensive,” said the Third Assault Brigade, which took part in the push.
Ukraine advanced cautiously in the area to minimise losses from mines and “very active” Russian defences, said brigade spokesman Oleksandr Borodin.
“(The Russians) defend their flanks very heavily here because they understand if (their) flank falls completely, it will create direct problems to hold the city (Bakhmut) itself,” he said.
“There is no Andriivka left per se… but as a place, as a square, it is an important square,” he added in televised comments.
The village lies on higher ground that allows Ukrainian artillery to operate more easily in the area, said Kyiv-based military analyst Oleksandr Musiyenko.
During its three-month-old counter-offensive, Ukraine has reported slow, steady progress against entrenched Russian positions, retaking a string of villages and advancing on the flanks of Bakhmut, but taking no major settlements.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other officials have dismissed Western critics who say the offensive is too slow and hampered by strategic errors.
Further south in the Donetsk region, Ukrainian troops continued to hold back a Russian offensive towards the towns of Avdiivka and Maryinka, General Staff spokesman Andriy Kovaliov said in televised comments.
He said the defenders managed to repel all Russian attacks near Maryinka.
On the southern front, the General Staff said its troops were inflicting substantial losses on the enemy near the village of Verbove in the Zaporizhzhia region.
Ukraine said on Thursday that it attacked two Russian patrol ships and destroyed a sophisticated air defence system in the west of occupied Crimea, ramping up its strikes to challenge Moscow’s dominance in the Black Sea region.
The attacks came a day after Kyiv said it seriously damaged a Russian submarine and landing ship undergoing repairs
The Ukrainian military, in a post on Telegram, said it hit two Russian patrol boats in the south-west of the Black Sea, causing “certain damage” in a morning attack.
“The (Sergei) Kotov was hit,” military intelligence official Andriy Yusov told Reuters, sharing a grainy video circulated online by a Ukrainian government minister that appeared to show sea drones attacking a vessel at sea.
The Russian Defence Ministry confirmed an attack on the Sergei Kotov in a morning statement, but said the assault involving five sea drones was repelled. It made no mention of damage.
The south-western location of the attack would indicate Ukraine’s ability to strike Russian targets far from its coast.
While Kyiv’s counter-offensive in the south and east has been slowed by minefields and Russian defensive lines, fighting has escalated in the Black Sea region where Russia is imposing a de facto blockade on Ukraine’s seaborne exports.
Russian drones have regularly attacked Ukrainian port infrastructure
Ukraine’s embattled navy has used sea drones to strike back, hitting the Olenegorsky Gornyak landing ship near Russia’s naval base in Novorossiysk early in August and a Russian fuel tanker.
Senior presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Ukraine was focused on three key tasks aimed at the de-occupation of the peninsula, which lies far behind the battlelines of southern Ukraine.
Kyiv, he said, was targeting air defence systems to open up the path to more strikes on Russian military and warehouse infrastructure. Kyiv was also attacking transport logistics to “stop the large-scale continuous supply of resources and reserves into the area of active hostilities”, he added.
“We need to chase away remnants of the Russian Black Sea Fleet from Crimean territorial waters and beyond and reinstate the status of the Black Sea as the sea of external jurisdiction,” he wrote in English.
Russia regards the peninsula as strategically important and uses its Black Sea Fleet to project power.
Ukraine’s military said it had hit Russian air defence systems in a long-range attack in the early hours of Thursday near the town of Yevpatoriya in the west of Crimea, which was seized by Moscow in 2014.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said its air defences shot down 11 drones overnight over the peninsula and did not mention damage.
Footage circulated on social media showed powerful explosions and a plume of smoke rising in the night sky illuminated by a blaze. Reuters could not verify the video.
A Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters that drones blinded the Russian air defence system by attacking its radar and antenna, and that two Neptune cruise missiles were fired at its launchers.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the account. REUTERS
