KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian and Ukrainian officials made rival claims of battlefield successes in their 4-year-old war, with Ukraine saying it pushed Moscow’s forces back across places on the front line and the Kremlin insisting Russia’s invasion of its neighbor is making progress.
At the same time, Russia’s almost daily attacks on Ukrainian civilian areas continued, killing several people, as Washington postponed its sponsored talks between the two sides due to the war in the Middle East.
Russia and Ukraine tout contradictory success claims
Despite being short of soldiers, Ukrainian forces have recently retaken nearly all the territory of the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk industrial region during a counteroffensive, driving Russian troops out of more than 400 square kilometers (150 square miles), Maj. Gen. Oleksandr Komarenko said in an interview published Tuesday by local media outlet RBC-Ukraine.
Russian troops are poorly supplied and lack support, Andrii Kyianenko, the deputy battalion commander of the 425th Separate Assault Regiment “Skelia” deployed in the area, told The Associated Press. Ukrainian soldiers have broken through Russian defenses and advanced more than 10 kilometers (6 miles), he said.