Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that fighting in southeastern Ukraine “intensified significantly” a day after US officials said the main thrust of the Ukrainian counteroffensive had started.
“As of the recent days – yes, indeed, we confirm that hostilities have intensified, and significantly, too. The main clashes occurred on what they call the main strike direction in the West — the Zaporizhzhia direction,” Putin said, according to the Russian news agency TASS.
Putin said the Ukrainian assault has yielded no success and claimed Ukrainian forces suffered heavy losses. “The enemy achieved no success on any contact swath; all counteroffensive attempts were stopped, and the enemy was pushed back with high casualties,” he said.
For their part, Ukrainian officials claimed their forces captured the village of Staromaiorske in the Donetsk Oblast, near the border of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast. While Ukraine has made some incremental gains in its counteroffensive, there’ve been no major breakthroughs.
Military situation in Ukraine on July 27, 2023. Photo: SouthFront.org
US officials told The New York Times on Wednesday that Ukraine had committed thousands of NATO-trained reserves for its new push. But on Thursday, a US military official told the Times it wasn’t clear how many soldiers they will commit. “It remains to be seen what they’ll truly commit, when they’ll commit it, and where,” the official said.
The goal of Ukraine’s push is to sever the land bridge Russia has secured from Crimea to the Russian mainland. But success seems unlikely, as The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Western officials didn’t believe Ukraine had enough weapons or training to dislodge Russian forces but hoped they would be able to break through anyway.
Source: AntiWar.
