(Kyiv) Ukrainian authorities said Sunday that their military forces had recaptured Klichchiivka, a tactically important town south of the town of Bakhmut on the eastern front, but the US military and NATO believe the war will be long.
“I especially want to mention the soldiers who are returning Ukraine its territories, step by step, in the Bakhmut sector,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his daily video message.
“Klichtchiïvka: well done! “, he added, listing the units that took part in the operation.
“Klichtchiïvka has been cleared of Russians,” Oleksandr Syrsky, commander of the Ukrainian land army, echoed on social networks.
This town, with a few hundred inhabitants before the Russian invasion, was taken by Russian forces in January.
This announcement comes after the Ukrainian armed forces declared on Friday that they had recaptured another locality, Andriivka, south of Bakhmut. The Russian military said on Sunday that this was not the case.
Ilia Ievlach, spokesperson for the Ukrainian troops on the Eastern Front, for his part explained that the capture of Klichtchiïvka could help the army encircle Bakhmut.
“We gained a bridgehead there which will allow us in the future to continue to carry out offensive operations and liberate our land,” he said on Ukrainian television.
“It is above all the control of logistics routes which make it possible to supply Bakhmout. It is (also) the exposure of the flanks, particularly to the south, which will allow us to advance more effectively deep into the enemy ranks,” he added.
“The railway is very important for the Russians. Fierce fighting is taking place” for its control in this area, the spokesperson argued.
“A long war”
PHOTO ALEX BABENKO, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ukrainian soldiers carried the body of a comrade to Andriivka, south of Bakhmut, on Saturday.
Ukrainian forces are striving, in the east and south, to cut the Russian army’s logistical lines which connect Russian territory to Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula occupied since 2014.
The Ukrainian counter-offensive “has not failed” but the road to victory for Kyiv is still very long, judged the American chief of staff, General Mark Milley, in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
“This offensive, although slow, slower than expected, remained constant,” he estimated, affirming that the Ukrainians still had “a significant strike force”.
The general conceded, however, that it “will take a long time” to achieve Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s goal “of kicking out all the Russians” from the country.
ARCHIVE PHOTO UKRAINIAN PRESIDENCY BY AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also warned that a rapid end to the war in Ukraine should not be expected, in another interview published on Sunday.
“Most wars last longer than was anticipated when they started,” Mr. Stoltenberg stressed in this interview with the German media group Funke.
“Therefore we must prepare for a long war in Ukraine,” he added.
Volodymyr Zelensky will be received at the White House on Thursday for new discussions with his American counterpart Joe Biden on support for Kyiv against the Russian invasion.
This trip comes at a time when the American Congress is debating a new envelope of 24 billion dollars in military aid for Kyiv.
Volodymyr Zelensky should also go to the Capitol to meet the Republican and Democratic leadership.
Ukraine launched a counter-offensive in June to retake territories occupied by Russia, after receiving Western weapons and training new battalions.
Bakhmout, a town of 70,000 inhabitants before the invasion launched by Russia in February 2022, was taken in May by Russian forces after one of the longest and bloodiest battles of this war.
However, Ukrainian forces almost immediately began to regain ground on the northern and southern flanks of this city.
Russia says it shot down Ukrainian drones
Russia claimed on the night of Sunday to Monday to have shot down several Ukrainian drones in annexed Crimea, in the Moscow region as well as those of Belgorod and Voronezh, close to Ukraine.
“Drones were intercepted over the western, southwest, northwest and eastern areas of the Crimean Peninsula, Istra (west) and Domodedovo (south) districts of the Moscow region, regions of Belgorod and Voronezh (southwest),” detailed the Russian Defense Ministry on Telegram, without specifying the number of aircraft destroyed or reporting damage or casualties at this stage.
“The production workshops of the Kharkiv armored plant, where the repair and restoration of armored vehicles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were carried out, were hit by a missile strike,” the same source also declared .
Earlier, the head of the local Ukrainian military administration, Oleg Synegubov, reported on Telegram that a city enterprise was hit by “four S-300 guided missiles” and a fire broke out.
Kharkiv and the region of the same name are located just south of Belgorod in Russia.
On Sunday, Russian air defenses shot down a Ukrainian drone in the Moscow region and six others heading towards the Crimean peninsula.
This type of attacks carried out by Kyiv against Russian territory, its capital or Crimea annexed in 2014 have increased in recent months against the backdrop of a counter-offensive by Kyiv that began at the beginning of June.
