Kiev (EFE).- The commander of the Ukrainian land forces, Oleksandr Syrsky, affirmed today after visiting the Bakhmut front on Sunday that the Russian forces that are trying to completely take over the city have started to apply “scorched earth tactics” as those that Russia used in Syria.
“The enemy has switched to the so-called Syrian scorched-earth tactics – destroying (Ukrainian) buildings and positions with airstrikes and artillery fire,” Syrksy was quoted as saying by the official Ukrainian army Telegram channel.
The Ukrainian military also stated that the troops that continue to resist in the part of Bakhmut that Kiev still controls “are exhausting the Wagnerites (mercenaries from the Russian Wagner mercenary group)” and have forced Russia to deploy special forces and airborne assault forces. in the zone.
“The fighting is fierce on both sides,” Syrsky said, adding that “the situation (in Bakhmut) is difficult, but it is under control.”
Both Russia and Ukraine have deployed special forces in Bakhmut, a town in eastern Ukraine that Russia has been trying to take since the summer with the aim of advancing towards its goal of conquering the entire Donbas region of Ukraine.
Russia loses about two companies a day trying to take Avdiivka, according to kyiv
Ukrainian military spokesman Oleksii Dmytrashkivskyi assured last night on the Ukrainian national television news service that Russia loses about two companies in its attempts to take the city of Avdiivka, on the eastern Ukrainian front.
“They are suffering colossal casualties; every day, the enemy loses about two companies, but does not give up on its efforts,” said the spokesman, who also explained that “the positional battles in the Marinka and Avdiivka area continue” without major changes.
Russian forces, he added, sometimes achieve results, “but all our positions that the enemy takes are recaptured and retaken” by the Ukrainian army.
Dmytrashkivskyi said, citing Russian prisoners of war captured by the Ukrainians, that Russian army commanders send soldiers into battle “without any preparation.” “They just wake up the personnel in the middle of the night, under machine gun fire, and send them to attack positions,” he stressed.
In its daily part this Monday, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces explained that the Russian forces continue to concentrate their efforts in the areas of Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Marinka, all of them on the eastern front.
In these four areas, the Ukrainians repelled 58 attacks in the last 24 hours, according to the report.
kyiv denounces kidnappings of civilians in occupied territory in Lugansk
The Military Administration of the Luhansk Oblast on Monday denounced raids and kidnappings of civilians by Moscow-imposed authorities in this largely Russian-occupied province of eastern Ukraine.
“The cases of violent kidnappings of the civilian population at the hands of the Russian invaders do not stop,” the military administration of the area said in a statement published on its Telegram account.
“Specifically in (the municipality of) Satrobilsk, they raid the houses of citizens suspected of supporting Ukraine and take people to an unknown place with no return,” reads the note, which denounces other abuses by of the occupation authorities.
In the town of Chmyrivka, the statement continued, the invaders recently looted a nursery, and in the surroundings of Popasna they stole tombstones from the cemetery to modify the inscriptions and reuse them for the graves of Russian soldiers.
“The decision is due to the fact that it is more than three times cheaper than commissioning a new monument,” concludes the note from the Lugansk Military Administration.