Kiev’s losses of military personnel have surpassed 8,000 over the past week amid Moscow’s continued offensive in Donbass, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a series of Telegram posts on Saturday. The nation’s military seized two settlements from Ukrainian forces and has gained ground across the region, it stated.
Moscow’s forces took control of the villages of Novomikhailovka in the central part of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Bogdanovka, near the key strategic town of Chasov Yar in the DPR’s north, the statements read. Around two dozen Ukrainian attacks in the region were also repelled.
Intense fighting also broke out in the Avdeevka area of the DPR, where Russian forces were advancing towards the villages of Ocheretino and Netailovo, located further to the west of the strategic Donbass town taken by Moscow’s forces in February. The nation’s forces also pushed back 63 Ukrainian assaults in the area, according to the ministry.
Ukraine lost a total of 8,280 soldiers over the past seven days, mostly in the Donbass fighting, data provided by the ministry indicates. Kiev also lost around a dozen tanks and several dozen armored fighting vehicles, along with hundreds of other pieces of military equipment. The list includes at least one US-made Paladin self-propelled 155mm howitzer, as well as almost 30 Western-supplied artillery systems, according to Moscow.
Russian forces also destroyed eight Ukrainian multiple rocket launchers, including US-made HIMARS and Czech-supplied RM-70 Vampire systems. The nation’s Air Force and air defense systems shot down Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter jet and Su-25 close air support aircraft, along with more than 1,600 drones, the ministry said.
Earlier this week, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said that Moscow’s forces had seized the initiative in the Ukraine conflict and “dispelled the myth of the superiority of Western weapons.”
Ukraine’s top military commander, General Aleksandr Syrsky, described the situation on the front lines as “difficult” as he talked with Kiev’s Western backers via video link on Friday. Things “have a tendency to get worse,” he said in a Telegram post reporting on the virtual meeting.
The developments come as the US adopted a $61-billion defense package on new aid for Kiev. Several media outlets reported that the first batches of aid could be dispatched to Kiev within days. The bill had been stuck in Congress for months as Republican lawmakers blocked it in a bid to squeeze concessions out of the administration of President Joe Biden on US border-control policies.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky told NBC that his nation has a “chance at victory” now that more Western weapons are coming its way. The Kremlin dismissed the news by saying that no deliveries of weapons can change the dynamics on the front lines.