(Moscow) The Russian Defense Minister assured Tuesday that Ukrainian attempts to break through Russian defenses on the eastern and southern fronts had “failed”, almost four months after the start of the counter-offensive by Kyiv’s forces.
“The enemy’s attempts to break through our defense in the Verbove and Robotyne regions in the Zaporozhye direction have failed,” Sergei Shoigu told the Russian General Staff.
Verbove and Robotyne are two villages in southern Ukraine where violent fighting has been taking place for months and where Kyiv has rightly claimed an advance of its troops in the area of the first Russian line of defense.
According to Mr. Shoigu, the Russian army also “repulsed all attacks in the Soledar-Bakhmout direction”, on the eastern front, a sector to the south of which Ukrainian troops claimed the capture of two villages.
The minister said that Russian forces managed to “significantly weaken the enemy’s combat potential and inflict serious damage.”
The Ukrainian counter-offensive, launched at the beginning of June after the deliveries of Western tanks to Kyiv and the formation of brigades trained in the West, has been coming up against powerful Russian defensive lines made of minefields, trenches and traps for months.
As winter approaches, this operation has so far only allowed the Ukrainian army to retake a handful of villages.
Mr. Shoigu also once again affirmed that Moscow “does not plan additional mobilization” after that of September 2022, the army having managed to recruit 335,000 people into its ranks since the start of the year.
He also promised that the approximately 130,000 conscripts due to complete their mandatory one-year military service this year will not be sent to fight in Ukraine.