In its latest report posted on Facebook on Wednesday, Ukraine’s military command said that after launching an offensive "in the Bakhmut direction," Russian forces “suffered losses and retreated to previously occupied positions.”
“Fighting continues,” the Ukrainian military added.
Meanwhile, "in the Novopavlivsk direction," Ukrainian forces "repulsed the offensive near the village of Shevchenko,” Ukraine's General Staff said.
"The enemy retreated," it added.
Severodonetsk
Elsewhere in the Donbas region, battles continued in the cities of Severodonetsk and Toshkivka, according to Ukraine’s military command.
The British defence ministry said in a report that “Russian forces now control the majority of Severodonetsk.”
However, some Ukrainian units and several hundred civilians “are sheltering in underground bunkers in the Azot Chemical Plant, in the city’s industrial zone,” according to UK analysts.
This means that Russian forces “will likely be fixed in and around Azot,” the UK defence ministry said, adding that this situation is preventing Russia “from re-tasking these units for missions elsewhere."
The UK analysts concluded: “It is highly unlikely that Russia anticipated such robust opposition, or such slow, attritional conflict during its original planning for the invasion.”
Russia desperate for new recruits
Meanwhile, according to the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), “the Russian military leadership continues to expand its pool of eligible recruits by manipulating service requirements.”
These shifts in eligibility criteria demonstrate “the Kremlin's increasing desperation for recruits to fill frontline units, regardless of their poor skills,” the think tank said.
It added that Russian authorities “may be accelerating plans to annex occupied areas of Ukraine.”
Wednesday is day 112 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua, understandingwar.org