Ukrainian forces have launched an offensive operation in the northern region of Donetsk in the east of the country, the central point of intense fighting over more than four years of war, a high-ranking military commander announced on Tuesday, reports Reuters.
The 3rd Army Corps has liberated a 75 square kilometer area by driving out Russian infiltration groups and has recaptured another 10 square kilometers, declared Brigadier General Andrii Bileţki, who has been commanding Ukraine’s defense in the area since last month.
The ticket specifies that the area is located to the north of the key bastions in the region – the so-called “fortress belt” formed by the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, whose capture would bring Russia closer to its goal of occupying the entire region, writes News.
“The third corps of the army has launched an offensive operation in this direction. The operation is called “Vivaldi”, Bileţki announced in a video uploaded on the Telegram app.
Bileţki asserts that his troops have disrupted Russian military logistics, liberated three villages and an area around a fourth. Another village named Serednie is entirely under Ukrainian control.
The Donetsk region has been the scene of the fiercest battles of the war. Russia wishes to fully control it, this being Moscow’s main territorial claim within the negotiations which, for now, have reached a deadlock, but which the USA wishes to relaunch through the envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, who visited Moscow and Kiev this month.
The general advance of Russia has slowed down this year, but its forces continue to exert pressure on the southern cities and to infiltrate deeper into the city of Kostiantînivka, in the east.
Reuters could not verify Bileţki’s claims. The independent establishment of territorial control lines in Ukraine is difficult due to the drone war, which has created a vast “lethal zone” along the front.
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