Kyiv (dpa-AFX) – According to Ukrainian information, the Russian troops are still concentrating on conquering the southern port city of Mariupol. This was announced by the Ukrainian General Staff in its morning situation report published on Facebook on Friday. In their latest Ukraine analysis, military experts from the US Institute for the Study of War (ISW) noted that Russian forces could “probably” complete the capture of Mariupol in the coming days.
Russian state television had reported that the center of the city on the Azov Sea had already been taken. But there are still 3,000 Ukrainian fighters in the city, it said.
The Ukrainian general staff report also states that Russian troops are also focusing on an offensive around the city of Izyum in the Kharkiv region in the east of the country that they have occupied. According to information from Kyiv, Moscow had recently concentrated troops there in order to advance in the direction of the city of Slovjansk in the Donetsk region. There are still Russian airstrikes and rocket launcher shelling in several cities in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions./vee/DP/jha