Ukraine's military commander warned that the situation on the battlefield would worsen

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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine's military commander warned on Saturday that the situation on the battlefield in the industrial east had “deteriorated significantly in recent days” as warmer weather allowed Russian forces to make new advances in several sectors more than 1,000 km (620) long. – mile) front line.

In an update to the Telegram messaging app, Gen. Alexander Syrsky said Moscow had “significantly” stepped up its attacks since President Vladimir Putin extended his nearly quarter-century rule in snap elections last month. ballots and independent voices were silenced in a Kremlin-backed media blockade.

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According to Syrskyi, Russian forces “actively attacked” Ukrainian positions in three districts of eastern Donetsk region, near the cities of Liman, Bakhmut and Pokrovsk, and launched tank attacks in dry and warm spring weather. Heavy vehicles used to drive on muddy terrain.

“Despite significant losses, the enemy is intensifying its efforts by using new units (equipped with) armored vehicles, thanks to which it periodically achieves tactical successes,” Syrskyi said.

A spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed on Saturday that the village, which had been the site of eighteen months of fierce fighting, had been captured. Analysts from the Ukrainian NGO Deep State, which monitors developments on the frontline, reported on Thursday morning that Russia had seized the town of Pervomaisk, 45 kilometers (28 miles) southeast of the city of Pokrovsk.

The group said in a Telegram update on Saturday that Moscow forces had also captured Bohdanovka, another eastern village near the town of Bakhmut, where the bloodiest fighting of the war raged for nine months before it fell to Russia last May. Soon after, Ukraine's Ministry of Defense denied that Bohdanovka had been captured, saying that “heavy fighting” was continuing there.

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As the war in Ukraine enters its third year and a major U.S. aid package for Kiev stalled in Congress, Russian troops are stepping up pressure on frontline-weary Ukrainian forces to prepare for more land grabs this spring and summer.

Russia has relied on its firepower and personnel capabilities to bolster its offensive in eastern Ukraine. It has increasingly used satellite-guided glide bombs, which allow aircraft to drop them from a safe distance, to strike Ukrainian forces beleaguered by a shortage of troops and ammunition.

Also on Saturday, Germany announced the delivery of additional Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine, after Russian missiles and drones hit infrastructure and energy facilities in several regions on Thursday, leaving hundreds of thousands of homes without power. DTEK has been described as one of the most powerful attacks this year. Germany's defense ministry said it would begin “handover” of the Patriot system immediately, without giving a specific timeline.

On X, formerly known as Twitter, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Saturday that he had discussed Russia's “massive” airstrikes against civilian energy infrastructure with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and that Berlin would be “unwaveringly on Ukraine's side.” »

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Putin described the strike as retaliation for Ukraine's attacks on Russia's energy infrastructure over the past few months, following repeated drone strikes on deep-sea Russian oil refineries.

Since last month, Moscow has resumed its attack on Ukraine's energy facilities. On Thursday, it completely shut down the largest plant that supplies energy to the region around Kyiv, as well as to the nearby provinces of Cherkassy and Zhytomyr.

At least 10 strikes have damaged the energy infrastructure of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city. Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said more than 200,000 people in the region were without electricity and that Russia was “trying to destroy Kharkiv's infrastructure and leave the city in darkness.”

Energy facilities were also damaged in Zaporozhye and Lviv regions.

The scale and precision of the latest attacks have alarmed defenders, who say Kremlin forces now have better intelligence and new tactics in their campaign to destroy Ukraine's power grid and shut down its economy.

2022-2023 in the winter, Russia targeted Ukraine's power grid in an attempt to deny electricity and heat to civilians and to curb the country's appetite for war.

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A local official installed by the Kremlin in Ukraine's Russian-occupied south blamed Kiev for a shelling that killed 10 people, including children, in a town in the southern Zaporozhye region the previous day.

Tokmak municipal administration reported on Telegram that three apartment buildings were hit by gunfire on Friday evening. According to Yevgeny Balitskyi, head of the region installed by the Kremlin, five people were pulled out alive from under the rubble and 13 people were hospitalized. It was not immediately possible to verify his words.

Ukrainian authorities did not immediately acknowledge or comment on the attack.

And in Ukraine, on Saturday, a Russian drone dropped explosives on an ambulance called to a village near the frontline city of Kupyansk, injuring its 58-year-old driver, local governor Oleh Synahubov said. His claim could not be independently verified.

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