Hanna Maliar announced the developments in an interview with Britain’s The Guardian newspaper, published online on Thursday afternoon.
Ukraine’s deputy defence minister said: “We are attacking on the southern flank of Bakhmut…. We have taken almost all the key heights [around Bakhmut].”
She added: “The Russians were trapped there, they couldn’t get out and now they can’t move around the city of Bakhmut because the Ukrainians are shelling the city from the heights.”
Maliar told The Guardian that Russia had been seeking to draw Ukrainian forces away from Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, by attacking areas of the northeastern Kharkiv region, liberated from Russian occupation last September.
Ukraine orders evacuation of Kupyansk
On Thursday, Ukraine ordered the evacuation of Kupyansk in Kharkiv province, after Russia stepped up its shelling in a bid to capture the city for a second time, the US broadcaster CNN reported.
The Kharkiv region has become the “new epicentre” of hostilities, where Russia is concentrating its main efforts, a local Ukrainian official told CNN.
Thursday’s evacuation order, the biggest since October 2022, concerns some 12,000 people, including more than 600 children, from 37 towns and villages in the Kupyansk district, authorities have said.
Residents were told to evacuate to Kharkiv, some 90 kilometres west, where they would have the option to move to safer regions, The Guardian reported.
Maliar said on Thursday: “The main focus of the Ukrainian army is the south, and the Russians are focused on the east. The Russians are infiltrating in two main areas – Kupyansk and Lyman.“
Russia strikes Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia city, killing one
Meanwhile, Russia on Thursday evening carried out another missile strike on Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, killing one person, the Ukrainska Pravda website reported.
An Iskander missile struck a hotel in Zaporizhzhia at 7:20 p.m., leaving one person dead and 16 injured, according to the Reuters news agency.
The 16 injured included four children, Zaporizhzhia governor Yuriy Malashko told reporters.
Two young women and a man were killed and nine other people were wounded in a Russian missile attack on Zaporizhzhia on Wednesday, The Guardian reported.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, launching the largest military campaign in Europe since World War II.
Friday is day 534 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
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Source: PAP, The Guardian, CNN, Ukrainska Pravda, Reuters