According to a senior general, the Ukrainian army has suffered heavy material losses since the start of the Russian war of aggression. “To date, as a result of active combat, we have an estimated 30 to 40, sometimes up to 50 percent material losses,” Brigadier General Volodymyr Karpenko told National Defense magazine. “It is estimated that 1,300 infantry fighting vehicles, 400 tanks and 700 artillery systems were lost.”
The fighting in the war is currently concentrated in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine. The situation is particularly dramatic in the strategically important city of Sievjerodonetsk in the Luhansk region, where the Russian army again bombed the Azot chemical plant on Friday. According to Ukrainian sources, there are more than 560 civilians, including 38 children, on the factory site.
Hardly any escape routes for civilians
According to British intelligence experts, citizens in Sievjerodeonezk have to make very difficult decisions. On the one hand, with the bridges destroyed, there are hardly any ways out of the city, apart from the humanitarian corridors unilaterally enacted by Russia and its allies. On the other hand, Moscow has misused such corridors in previous cases in Ukraine and also in Syria to gain battlefield advantages and forcibly relocate people, according to a statement from the British Ministry of Defense on Saturday.
Russia’s proposed route would take people to the town of Svatove, further into Russian-occupied territory, British experts said. However, they warned: “If detained civilians decline an offer to leave via a corridor, Russia will likely use that as an excuse to discriminate less between them and any Ukrainian military targets.” According to British estimates, Russian troops have attempted more than the past 48 hours to advance south of Izyum again to encircle the Sieverodonetsk pocket from the north.
Russian missiles against residential areas
According to regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko, four civilians were killed by Russian attacks in the Donetsk region on Friday and six others were injured. Authorities say two people were killed and 20 injured in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv on Friday morning. The region’s governor, Vitaly Kim, said Russian troops launched rocket attacks on a residential area.
Russian tugboat sunk
A tug of the Russian Black Sea Fleet that was hit by Ukrainian missiles has now sunk, Ukrainian authorities said. The tugboat Vasili Bech was damaged by Ukrainian missiles in the morning. “It was later announced that it was sinking,” Odessa military governor Maxym Marchenko said in a video address on his Telegram channel Friday evening. There is no confirmation from Russian or independent sources for the sinking.
The Ukrainian navy had already reported the shelling on Friday. According to the report, the ship, which was commissioned in 2017 and equipped with a “Tor” air defense system, was hit by harpoon missiles and badly damaged. Denmark supplied the anti-ship missiles to Ukraine. The smuggler was therefore on his way with military equipment to the strategically important “snake island”, which has been occupied by Russian troops since the end of February.
The Vasily Bech would not be the first ship lost by the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the war against Ukraine. The loss of the landing ship Saratov and the missile cruiser Moskva was confirmed by the Russian side. Above all, the sinking of the Moskva as flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet was a painful loss for the Russian navy.
Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
