Ukrainian missile strikes have destroyed more than 30 Russian military logistics centers in recent weeks, significantly reducing Russia’s attack potential, the spokesman for Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said.
The official, Oleksandr Motuzianyk, highlighted on Friday the role played by the US-made HIMARS missile systems, one of several types of long-range weapons supplied by the West to help Ukraine fight back against Russia .
“Over the past few weeks, over 30 enemy military logistic facilities have been destroyed, significantly reducing the attack potential of Russian forces,” Motuzianyk said on national television.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine on February 24, seized part of the territory in southern Ukraine and used its artillery dominance in the east to make incremental territorial gains, eventually capturing the Luhansk region.
[Al Jazeera]
But a senior Ukrainian general said Thursday that Russia has not taken “a single yard” of land in the last week and that Ukrainian missile strikes are disrupting Russian supply lines and forcing Moscow to keep its ammunition farther from the frontline.
Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify the claims made by Ukrainian officials.
HIMARS have a longer range and are more accurate than Soviet-era Ukraine artillery, allowing Ukrainian forces to hit Russian targets previously unattainable with more conventional weapons.
Ukraine’s defense minister also said on Friday that Kyiv had received an initial shipment of M270 multiple rocket launch systems without specifying which country supplied them.
Russia has criticized the United States and the United Kingdom for helping to train Ukraine’s armed forces, calling it part of NATO’s “hybrid warfare” against Moscow.
Moscow said Washington is also providing instructors to Ukraine to help use HIMARS.
Kyiv said this week that its forces have carried out attacks on Russian military infrastructure in a town deep in Russian-held territory in southern Ukraine.
Fighting in Donetsk
Moscow-backed separatists said Friday they were closing in on their next target – the city of Siversk – after seizing control of the twin cities of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk two weeks ago.
Donetsk separatist official Daniil Versonov said rebel fighters were “clearing” the eastern districts of Siversk in small groups.
An attack on Friday hit the central square in Kramatorsk, a major city and administrative center of Donbass, where the town hall and cultural center are located.
Authorities said no one was injured as it happened during the curfew.
Genya, a 72-year-old Kramatorsk resident, described seeing “something burn in the middle of the square and then explode” from his balcony.
Civilians collect their personal belongings from the rubble after their home in Seversk, Ukraine, was the target of a rocket attack [File: Narciso Contreras, Anadolu Agency]
The Russian Defense Ministry also said Thursday’s cruise missile attack on the city of Vinnytsia – which killed 23 civilians, including children – was aimed at a building where senior officials from Ukraine’s armed forces were meeting with foreign arms suppliers.
Ukraine has denied any military target was hit, saying the attack hit a cultural center used by retired veterans and killed only civilians.
Captured helper dies
Also on Friday, an official of the self-proclaimed pro-Russian Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) announced the death of British citizen Paul Urey, 45.
Daria Morozova, human rights ombudsman for the Moscow-backed separatist leadership in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, said a British “mercenary” whom she called Urey died in captivity on Sunday. She said he died from chronic illness and stress.
A British charity involved in his case confirmed that Urey’s family had been notified of his death by British officials. The UK on Friday summoned Russian Ambassador Andrei Kelin to express “deep concern” at reports of Urey’s death.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Urey “was in Ukraine trying to help the Ukrainian people in the face of the unprovoked Russian invasion,” echoing NGO claims that he was not a combatant.
Urey was arrested in April along with another Briton, Dylan Healy, at a checkpoint near Zaporizhzhia, some 470 kilometers (290 miles) south-east of Kyiv. The two men worked alone in the war zone, helping evacuate civilians.
Two other British nationals and a Moroccan captured fighting for Ukraine have been sentenced to death in the DPR for alleged mercenary activities.