Russia claimed Tuesday the capture of a new village in eastern Ukraine, a new advance in the face of a Ukrainian army lacking men and ammunition due to the running out of Western aid.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has just been re-elected and is hammering home Russian unity behind his assault on his neighbor, has ordered his security services to “punish” the anti-Kremlin fighters who have been increasing attacks on Russian territory for a week.
These cross-border offensives aimed in particular to disrupt the Russian presidential election, which resulted in the re-election of the Russian president, while the opposition was eradicated by repression.
In Ukraine, the Russian army is slowly advancing in Donbass. Russian forces “liberated the town of Orlivka”, claimed the Ministry of Defense on Tuesday, specifying that they had also “improved” its positions in the area.
It is located northwest of the town of Avdiïvka, conquered by Moscow in February, a victory at the cost of heavy destruction but which highlighted Kiev’s difficulties.
At the end of February, by abandoning the neighboring village of Lastochkyné, the Ukrainian forces had nevertheless indicated that they were going to take refuge behind new defense lines in Orlivka in order to contain the Russian advance.
“Critical importance”
The Moscow army, despite significant losses, gradually conquered territory, in particular in the area of Avdiivka and that, further north, of Chassiv Yar, a key town where the Ukrainian army withdrew after the fall in May 2023 of Bakhmut.
Ukraine, whose army emerged very weakened from its failed counter-offensive in the summer of 2023, repeats that it urgently needs weapons and ammunition in the face of multiple Russian assaults. She assures that with enough shells, she could contain them.
But the American political class has been torn apart for months over the support to be given to kyiv, with Donald Trump’s Republicans blocking the aid that Democratic President Joe Biden is seeking to have approved.
On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky deemed a “rapid” decision in favor of this $60 billion envelope to be “critically important”.
On Tuesday, he again called for anti-aircraft defense means to counter the hundreds of drones, missiles and aerial bombs that Russia drops on Ukraine every month, noting that these systems are made “to save lives, not collect dust in a warehouse.
The United States tried to reassure, through its Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, promising Tuesday that they “will not let Ukraine fail”.
At the same time, Europe has fallen behind in its own deliveries, its industrial capacities remaining limited.
Ukraine is also faced with the problem of recruiting new soldiers in this difficult military context.
The Kremlin has, on the contrary, moved to a war economy, dedicating a large part of its budget and its industry to military production.
Moscow also ensures that, every month, tens of thousands of men sign contracts to join the army, allowing it to replenish its ranks after its heavy losses.
” Garbage “
But Russia is far from a breakthrough and is facing an increase in attacks on its soil.
Military units claiming to be composed of anti-Putin Russians have increased ground and air assaults in recent days, killing 16 people and wounding nearly a hundred in one week in the Belgorod region, according to the authorities.
For safety reasons, they announced on Tuesday the evacuation of “around 9,000” children.
A representative of these fighters, going by the alias Fortuna, indicated on Ukrainian television that “one of (their) military objectives is to force the transfer of (Russian) troops from the front to the border to defend it.”
Facing the leaders of the powerful FSB, the Russian security services which also control the country’s borders, Vladimir Putin ordered to “punish” these attackers, calling them “trash” and “traitors”.
“We will punish them in an imprescriptible manner, wherever they are,” he said.
Russia also presented a new commander of its fleet on Tuesday, Admiral Alexander Moiseyev, after suffering multiple attacks from maritime drones and Ukrainian missiles which sank or damaged several of its ships in the Black Sea.