MOSCOW (dpa-AFX) – According to the military leadership in Moscow, the Russian army is advancing “very dynamically” in the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk areas of Ukraine. The Russian troops are already 15 kilometers to the south of the border of the regional capital Zaporizhia, military officials said at a meeting with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin. Putin said that although the Ukrainian armed forces had been preparing for defense for a long time, the Russian army was completing the task of taking Zaporizhzhia. The units “Dnepr” and “Vostok” (East) should take the city together, he said.
Defense Minister Andrei Beloussov said everything was going “very dynamically” and according to plan. “In fact, we reached the maximum pace of the year in December,” he said. More is currently being achieved than planned.
Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov informed Putin that Slovyansk would now be the next target in the Donetsk region. Overall, the operations to completely capture the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions went according to plan. The Russian troops pushed deep into the defensive positions of the Ukrainian armed forces, he said.
Putin: Ukrainian troops withdraw
“The troops of the groups are safely advancing and breaking through the enemy’s defense lines. The units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are retreating everywhere, along the entire front line,” Putin claimed. The Russian information cannot be independently verified. The Ukrainian armed forces have repeatedly rejected Putin’s claims of conquests as lies and wishful thinking.
Russia has been waging its destructive war of aggression against Ukraine for almost four years. Although the occupiers have largely conquered the four annexed areas, they lack parts for complete control everywhere. The Russians have also taken over parts of the Sumy, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, to which Putin has not yet officially laid claim./mau/DP/he