Moscow hoped to take this territory in the east of the country by May 9, the date of the military parade commemorating victory over Nazi Germany. But the Ukrainian resistance is fierce and the front lines move little.
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Despite its superiority in modern material and fire power, Russia fails to close its pincers on the Donbass for the moment. The Russian offensive descending from the city of Izioum must make a junction with that rising from the south to the Pokrovsk road and rail node.
Despite the flood of fire applied by artillery, planes and Russian attack helicopters on the Ukrainian positions north of Sloviansk, the front line moves very little, while on the southern side, consolidated for eight In the unchanged. The pincers’ movement aims to cut the refueling of the Ukrainian army of Donbass and its soldiers overthrew after eight years of war.
The objective of Moscow, in the second phase of his “special operation”, consists in taking the “total control of the Donbass [regions of Donetsk and Louhansk] and southern Ukraine”, as a Indicated, on April 22, the deputy commander of the central military district, General Roustam Minnekaïev. This second phase, launched according to this officer on April 20, must symbolically bear its first fruits for the great military parade which must be held on May 9 in Moscow.
For the moment, despite the very strong political pressure on the Russian army, no decisive victory is taking shape. Since April 20, she has only achieved three small -scale breakthroughs, on the eastern part of the front, without significantly shaking up the Ukrainian lines of defense. These are the villages of Verkhnotretske (3,000 inhabitants), Novotoshkivske (2,000 inhabitants) and the hamlet of Novoaleksandrivka (124 inhabitants).
intense bombings and street fights
Faced with the fierce resistance of the Ukrainian soldiers, the attackers carry out a methodical destruction of each locality for tactical reasons. “Novotoshkivske is today completely shaved. It is the Russian method: bombing until the urban relief disappears and can no longer provide protection to the defenders, explains the world Serhiy Haïdaï, governor of the Louhansk region. ‘is the reason why we strive to evacuate civilians as much as possible, because they annoy the defense. Their presence limits the possibility of the Ukrainian military to tactically use civil buildings. “According to this logic, the more the cities have a large size, the more their buildings are high, the less they are easy to take.
Today, the advance of the Russian army is stumbled over the small towns of Popasna, Roubijne, where intense bombardments and street fights take place. Le Monde was able to observe several days in a row of the columns of black smoke rising above the two localities, as well as their shelf almost without respite.
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