KYIV, July 4 ------ Ukraine on Monday said its forces clawed back more territory from Russia last week as part of its counteroffensive, as Moscow's security service said it foiled an assassination attempt on the head of the annexed Crimea Peninsula.
Kyiv's forces, which have faced intense resistance and made gradual progress in their counteroffensive launched last month, have urged Western allies for more military support. "Over the past week... the area liberated [in the east] was increased by 9 square kilometers (4 square miles)," Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said. Ukrainian forces also wrested another 28 sq km in the south, she added, with "successes" along the front near the cities Melitopol and Berdyansk. The forces have gained over 158 sq km in the south since the start of the counteroffensive, Maliar said. Kyiv's troops are coming up against heavily entrenched Russian defensive positions both along the southern and eastern fronts. Moscow's forces are also on the offensive, and in recent days launched new assaults toward the town of Svatove, in the eastern Luhansk region.
On Sunday, Maliar said Russia was advancing near Svatove, as well as near the cities of Avdiivka, Mariinka and Lyman, adding: "the situation is quite complicated." She also said Ukrainian troops were fighting "fierce" battles around Bakhmut. The flashpoint eastern city was seized by Russian forces led by the private mercenary group Wagner.
In late June, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin led his troops in a rebellion against Moscow's top military brass, which Russian President Vladimir Putin said posed a threat to the country's very survival. Following the rebellion, the Kremlin gave Wagner fighters the choice of signing contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry, returning to civilian life or going into exile in Belarus, whose authoritarian leader is an ally of Putin. Russia, however, said there was no need for further mobilization to replace the Wagner troops that left the battlefield, even as Kyiv is leading its counteroffensive. Ukraine aims to gain back its territories in the east and south, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
In Crimea, the Federal Security Service, or FSB, said on Monday it had foiled an assassination attempt on Sergei Aksyonov, the peninsula's Moscow-installed head. The FSB said it had detained a suspect, "a Russian ... born in 1988 who had been recruited by officers of Ukraine's Security Service (SBU)." The suspect was held while "removing the explosive device from its hiding place," it added.
Aksyonov thanked the FSB for preventing the attack and said the perpetrators would be punished. "Only by fulfilling the objectives of the military operation in Ukraine can we completely get rid of the terrorist threat from the side of Kyiv," he said. Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine after a referendum widely regarded as a sham by Kyiv and Western countries. Increased attacks on Russian-occupied territories preceded the highly expected counteroffensive, which Ukraine launched last month after accumulating Western-made weapons.
Ukrainian officials have expressed frustration at the slow deliveries of weapons promised by the West. Ukraine's military commander in chief Valery Zaluzhny told the Washington Post it "pisses me off" that some in the West complain about the slow start and progress to the long-awaited push against Russian occupying forces. He also complained he has a fraction of the artillery shells that Russia is firing. "A lot of people die every day — a lot. Just because no decision has been made yet," Zaluzhny said. Also on Sunday, global writers' group PEN International said a Ukrainian author wounded in a Russian missile strike on a restaurant last week had died.
Source: manilatimes.net
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