The Russian army announced on Tuesday “massive strikes” on all fronts in response to the lightning counter-offensive by Ukrainian troops, which the Kremlin accuses of abuses in the recaptured areas, while kyiv blames “up to 200 crimes of war a day” to Russian soldiers.
The Russian bombardments have so far left 8 dead and 19 injured in 24 hours in the population of the regions of Kharkiv (north-east) and Donetsk (east), declared the Ukrainian presidency.
“Ukraine records up to 200 war crimes committed daily by the Russians” on its soil, the army general staff also assured, adding that “more than 70,000 km² in ten Ukrainian regions were mined” by the occupiers.
For its part, Russia has claimed that the Ukrainian military has been carrying out harsh reprisals against civilians in the places they have taken over in recent days.
“According to our information, there are many punitive actions against the inhabitants of the Kharkiv region, people are tortured, mistreated,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, adding: “It’s revolting”.
“Massive Strikes”
“Russian air, ballistic and artillery forces are carrying out massive strikes against Ukrainian Armed Forces units in all operational areas,” the Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.
In particular, he mentioned shelling near Sloviansk, Konstantinivka and Bakhmout in eastern Ukraine, as well as in the southern regions of Mykolaiv and Zaporizhia and in that of Kharkiv, from where Russian soldiers have almost completely withdrawn in the face of Ukrainian advances.
The Russian offensive launched on February 24 will continue “until the objectives are achieved”, had hammered the day before the Kremlin, according to which there is currently “no prospect of negotiations” between the two belligerents.
Ukraine on Monday reported new military successes, saying it had reached the Russian border and restored its control over the equivalent of seven times the area of kyiv in a month to the Russian army.
The Ukrainian army had first announced a counter-offensive in the south, before achieving a lightning breakthrough in the northeast over the past week.
In total, “since the beginning of September, our soldiers have already liberated 6,000 km2 of Ukrainian territories in the east and south,” a figure twice that officially provided 24 hours earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday evening.
“And we keep moving forward,” he concluded.
The Russians “flee or redeploy”
The Russians “fail to reinforce the new front line after the Ukrainian gains in eastern Kharkiv Oblast and are fleeing the area in large numbers or redeploying on other axes”, noted Tuesday the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a think tank based in the United States.
“Images posted on social media show lines of cars stretching for miles near Stchastia and Stanysya Luganska”, on the edge of the “People’s Republic of Lugansk”, unilaterally proclaimed in 2014 by pro-Russian separatists (as that of Donetsk) and near the Russian border.
On the entire front, the Ukrainian army had assured the day before that it had “succeeded in driving out the enemy from more than 20 localities” in 24 hours.
On Monday evening, the chief of staff of the Ukrainian presidency Andriï Yermak had released a video in which a voice-over explained: “The 14th separate mechanized brigade has reached the border of the Kharkiv region with Russia. This is the village of Ternova”, located five kilometers from the Russian border.
“It is too early to say exactly where all this will lead us,” said the head of the American diplomacy, Antony Blinken. “We are in the early days (of the counter-offensive, editor’s note) so I think it would not be good to predict exactly where all this will lead us”.
Still in the Kharkiv region, the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office announced on Monday the discovery of four bodies of civilians bearing “traces of torture” in Zaliznychné, a small town recently reconquered. According to the preliminary investigation, “the victims were killed by the Russian military during the occupation of the village”, he added.
Russian forces have been repeatedly accused of abuses in Ukraine.
At the international level, the Finnish Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, called on Tuesday for the unity of the European Union and for new sanctions against Russia in the face of its energy “blackmail”.
European energy ministers will meet on September 30 to examine the emergency measures proposed by the Commission to stem the surge in gas and electricity prices caused by the war in Ukraine.