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On Saturday, Ukrainian forces fought to prevent the advance of Russian military troops into the southeast of the country.
The Kremlin is trying to invade the industrial region of Donbas. Western military analysts say the Moscow offensive is moving much slower than expected.
On the other hand, the United Nations is continuing its efforts to mediate the evacuation of civilians from the devastated city of Mariupol, a port city in southern Ukraine, which Russia has been trying to take control of since the beginning of the offensive against this country. more than nine weeks ago.
Residents at a steel plant in Mariupol are begging to be rescued, Mayor Vadym Boichenko said on Friday. The factory has become the last bastion of the city’s defense and houses about 2,000 fighters, as well as about 1,000 civilians.
In an interview with China’s state-run Xinhua news agency, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russian and Ukrainian negotiators spoke almost daily. But progress he added has not been easy.
Airstrikes and artillery shelling have made the movement of journalists extremely dangerous and this has made it difficult to provide a complete picture of the fighting in the east. Both Ukraine and Moscow-backed rebels fighting in the east are imposing strict restrictions on reports from war zones.
Numerically, Russia’s military power far exceeds that of Ukraine. In the days before the start of the war, according to Western intelligence, Moscow had positioned 190 thousand troops near the border while the permanent army of Ukraine is estimated at about 200 thousand troops.
Russian and separatist forces appear to have made little progress in the Donbas since Moscow announced it would concentrate its military force in eastern Ukraine.
This development is partly due to strong Ukrainian resistance. According to a senior US defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Washington believes the Russians are at least a few days behind with their targets as they try to encircle Ukrainian troops in the east.
The British Ministry of Defense offered a similar assessment, saying that it believes that Russian forces in Ukraine are likely to face a weakening of morale in their ranks as well as unstable air support. But British officials did not provide details on where they based their assessments./VOA
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