Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, said Moscow’s forces are advancing along the front and targeting encircled Ukrainian troops in Myrnohrad, where Russia claims to control over 30% of the town and to have fully taken nearby Pokrovsk, according to Reuters. Ukraine denies these claims, saying its forces still hold parts of both areas. Russia now controls about 19.2% of Ukraine, while Kyiv says it is holding defensive lines and making Russia pay heavily for limited gains. Putin has warned he will take the entire Donbas unless Ukraine withdraws, a demand Kyiv rejects. They write:
Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, said on Tuesday that Moscow’s forces were advancing along the entire front line in Ukraine and were targeting surrounded Ukrainian troops in the town of Myrnohrad.
In a command post meeting with officers of the Centre Grouping which is fighting in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, Gerasimov said President Vladimir Putin had ordered the defeat of Ukrainian forces in Myrnohrad, a town with a pre-war population of some 46,000 people to the east of Pokrovsk.
Russia had taken control of more than 30% of Myrnohrad’s buildings, Gerasimov said. […]
Russia currently controls 19.2% of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, Luhansk, more than 80% of Donetsk, about 75% of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions. […]
Putin said last week that Russia would take full control of Ukraine’s Donbas region by force unless Ukrainian forces withdraw, something Kyiv has flatly rejected.
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