The kyiv counteroffensive is two weeks old and the Russians admit losses

Kyiv’s counteroffensive is  weeks antique this Sunday and forces Moscow to apprehend the primary advances of the enemy in southern Ukraine, now not a long way from the land corridor connecting Donbas and the Crimean peninsula.

The Russian representative within the Ukrainian location of Zaporizhia, Vladimir Rogov, admitted lack of “operational control” over a town within the location as a part of the offensive actions of the enemy.

“Filling the techniques and western suburbs of Piatikhatki with the corpses of masses of their army, the enemy controlled to take it beneath operational manage”Rogov wrote on Telegram.

The chairman of the “Together with Russia” movement in Zaporizhia introduced that Russian artillery is now hitting the enemy to prevent him from entrenching in the city.

If the Ukrainian armed forces control to gain a foothold in Piatikhatki and acquire reinforcements, the next metropolis in their sights could be Zherebianki, he warned. From there, the Ukrainian troops can be able to start an offensive at the town of Vasilivka70 kilometers from Melitopol.

Ukrainian infantrymen on the front line close to the city of Bakhmut, Donetsk area. AFP photograph

The Russian Defense Ministry did not verify in its each day report the lack of manipulate over Piatikhatki, however it did well known that the toughest combating is now taking location at the Zaporizhia the front.

“During the remaining day, the Ukrainian militia continued Attempts to attack on the Zaporizhia frontssouth of Donetsk and Donetsk,” the army file states.

High casualties on both sides

The Russian military assures that “all assaults” of the enemy are repelled and handiest in Zaporizhia the kyiv forces they misplaced “extra than two hundred infantrymen and 33 tanks” in in the future.

Another 210 enemy squaddies have been killed inside the remaining day inside the Donetsk zone of the the front, consistent with the Russian side.

The ultra-modern a part of British intelligence additionally confirms heavy fighting in Zaporizhia and Donetsk, in addition to across the disputed metropolis of Bakhmut.

“In these regions, Ukraine continues offensive operations and has made little progress,” London said.

At the same time, he provides that in the south the Russians guard themselves in a “tremendously effective” way and “both aspects are suffering heavy casualties”.

“Russian losses are the best because the top of the war for Bakhmut in March,” he says.

According to Ukraine, the Russian forces lose equivalent troops and army gadget in only 24 hours to more than four companies.

Strengthen the land corridor

Meanwhile, the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) echoes the statements of a seasoned-Russian reliable from Zaporizhia who announced the authorities’ plans to perform several infrastructure tasks that connect the Zaporizhia region with the Crimean peninsula. , annexed by Moscow in 2014.

According to the ISW, the pass likely seeks “Securing new land strains of verbal exchange for the Russian grouping in southern Ukraine”.

In specific, it's miles planned to construct a railway from the Russian metropolis of Rostov-on-Don to Crimea in an effort to bypass through the Zaporizhia vicinity.

Furthermore, Russian officials seek to strengthen roads connecting Russia and the Ukrainian territories underneath its control.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin cConsiders fulfilled “to a extraordinary extent” the aim of demilitarizing Ukraine.

“Ukraine is using much less and less of its very own guns and increasingly more of the weapon structures provided to it with the aid of Western countries,” Russian Presidency spokesman Dmitri Peskov said.

Therefore, “one of the responsibilities” that the Russian aspect had set for itself “has in fact been largely performed,” he introduced.

Peskov insisted that Ukraina become “heavily militarized” a yr and a 1/2 in the past, which can no longer be said now.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered what Moscow continues to name “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, mentioning the need to “demilitarize” and “denazify” the neighboring u . S . A ., as well as guard the populace of Donbas.

The chief of Donetsk imposed by means of Russia, Denis Pushilin, commented on Sunday the phrases of the Kremlin spokesman and confident that these refer best to the guns that Ukraine had and that had been destroyed with the aid of Russia.

“In this component, demilitarization has been finished, but that does not mean that denazification need to not be carried out,” Pushilin turned into quoted as pronouncing by way of the TASS organisation.

In other statements, accumulated via the RIA Novosti news agency, the seasoned-Russian leader insisted that the completion of the demilitarization nor will it prevent Russia from continuing to “unencumber” territories within the areas of Donetsk, Lugansk, Jershon and Zaporiyia.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmitro Kuleba, affirmed nowadays that the announcement of one of the targets accomplished is a part of the Russian policy to sell setbacks as successes.