Russia claims to have seized new villages in eastern Ukraine

As Ukraine’s president urged allies to deliver all the weapons they had promised to send to Kyiv, Russia claims it has taken control of two villages in eastern Ukraine where its forces have been steadily advance for months.

About 10 kilometers (six miles) southwest of Kurakhove, a crucial logistics hub that Moscow claimed to have seized last week, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Sunday. This comes after Russia’s army claimed to have also taken new territory northwest of Kurakhove.

The village of Kalinove in the northeastern Kharkiv region had also been taken, according to the Defense Ministry.

The village is located on the western bank of the Oskil River, which has traditionally served as the region’s front line for the region’s two armies.

After crossing the river, a Ukrainian official, who was quoted by the AFP news agency, claimed on Thursday that Russian forces had managed to construct a bridgehead on the western bank.

Russia’s army has spent months making attempts to cross the river, which also cuts through Kupiansk, a city recaptured by Ukraine in its 2022 counteroffensive.

Separately, the Russian Defence Ministry said that over the past 24 hours, Russia’s forces have carried out strikes on Ukrainian military airfields, personnel and vehicles in 139 locations using the air force, drones, missiles and artillery.

Ukrainian air defences downed 60 out of 94 drones launched by Russia overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force.

It said that 34 drones were “lost”, in reference to Ukraine’s use of electronic warfare to redirect Russian drones.

Falling drone fragments damaged houses in the Kharkiv, Sumy and Poltava regions, but no one was hurt, the air force said.

Three people were hurt by drones in the southern Kherson region on Sunday, according to regional authorities, and about 23 000 households were without electricity after Russian shelling damaged power lines in the city.

The attack targeted Kherson’s Dniprovskyi district along the Dnipro River, a region that is frequently shelled by Russian forces on the opposite bank of the river.

Kherson’s governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said Kherson city and about 50 settlements in the surrounding region had been shelled by Russian forces over the past 24 hours.

“The Russian military shelled social infrastructure and residential areas of the region’s settlements, in particular, damaging two multistorey buildings and eight private houses”, Prokudin said on Telegram.

In the Russian-controlled section of the Kherson region, a Ukrainian drone attacked a car, killing a 76-year-old woman outside her house, Russian-installed Governor Vladimir Saldo said on Telegram.

Zelenskyy appeals to allies

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, pleaded with allies to honor their commitments to provide Ukraine with weapons, including those used to stop Russian airstrikes, in a statement released on Sunday.

According to Zelenskyy, Russian forces have used nearly 700 aerial bombs and more than 600 attack drones in the past week to launch hundreds of attacks on Ukraine.

On the Telegram messaging app, Zelenskyy wrote, “Every week, the Russian war continues only because the Russian army can still terrorize Ukraine and exploit its superiority in the sky.”

“The decisions made at the NATO summit in Washington, as well as those adopted during the Ramstein meetings regarding air defences for Ukraine, have still not been fully implemented”, Zelenskyy said.

This week, the leader of Ukraine revealed that he had discussed the possibility of granting Ukraine licenses to produce missiles and air defense systems with international partners.

Task force for oil spill

Russian officials reported that an emergency task force was dispatched to the southern Krasnodar region of Russia on Sunday as an oil spill from two storm-stricken tankers continues to spread.

Vladimir Putin called on authorities to increase the response to the spill on Friday, calling it “one of the most serious environmental challenges we have faced in recent years,” and the task force was founded.

Kurenkov said that “the most difficult situation” had developed near the port of Taman in the Krasnodar region, where fuel oil continues to leak into the sea from the damaged part of the Volgoneft-239 tanker.

Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported that Kurenkov claimed the tanker’s stern would be pumped out the last of the oil.

Heorhii Tykhyi, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, criticized Russia for “beginning to demonstrate its alleged “concern” only after the magnitude of the disaster became too overt to conceal its terrible consequences in response to Putin’s call for action.

The practice of Russia, which acknowledges its inability to solve the problem before admitting its inability to do so, and ultimately leaving the entire Black Sea region alone with the consequences, is yet another example of its international irresponsibility, Tykhyi said on Friday.

The inland Sea of Azov’s Kerch Strait provides passage to the Black Sea, which is a significant global shipping route. Following Moscow’s annexation of the peninsula in 2014, it has also been a significant source of conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

In 2016, Ukraine took Moscow to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, where it accused Russia of trying to seize control of the area illegally. In 2021, Russia closed the strait for several months.

Source: Aljazeera