Ukraine said Thursday it was forced to cede some territory in the east of the country in the face of a Russian offensive, and the head of the NATO military alliance said Moscow must not be allowed to win the war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this week described the pressure his armed forces were under in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine as “Hell”. He spoke of fierce fighting around the town of Avdiivka and the fortified village of Pisky, where Kyiv has acknowledged “partial success” of its Russian enemy in recent days. The Ukrainian military said on Thursday that Russian forces had launched at least two attacks in Pisky but that its troops had managed to repel them. Ukraine has spent the past eight years fortifying defensive positions in Pisky, viewing it as a buffer zone against Russian-backed forces that control the city of Donetsk about 10 kilometers (6 miles) to the southeast. General Oleksiy Gromov told a news conference that Ukrainian forces had recaptured two villages around the eastern town of Sloviansk but had been pushed back to the outskirts of the town of Avdiivka after being forced to abandon a coal mine seen as a key defensive position. The Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed its attack. It said its forces inflicted heavy casualties on Ukrainian forces around Avdiivka and two other locations in Donetsk province, forcing Kiev’s mechanized and mechanized infantry units to withdraw. Reuters could not immediately verify either side’s claims. Video released by the Russian Defense Ministry shows Russian rocket launchers in action and tanks advancing and firing at speed across open terrain. It was not clear where they were filmed. Some unverified reports suggest that Russian-backed forces have reached the outskirts of Piski. Equipped with sophisticated weapons from the West, Ukraine is also attacking Russian-backed forces in the region. Officials of the Russian-backed self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said Thursday that Ukrainian shelling killed at least five people and wounded six in the city of Donetsk. Footage on social media showed bodies, some blown up, lying next to a street in central Donetsk. Blood stained the pavement. Pavlo Kyrylenko, the Ukrainian governor of Donetsk, said on Telegram that three civilians had been killed by Russian shelling in Bakhmut, Maryinka and Shevchenko and five wounded in the past 24 hours. Eight people were killed and four wounded by Russian artillery shelling in the Donetsk town of Toretsk, he said. Russia, which denies it deliberately targeted civilians, has said it plans to take full control of the greater Donetsk province, one of two that make up the industrialized Donbas region, as part of what it calls a “special military operation” to secure of its security from what it calls the unjustified enlargement of NATO. Human rights group Amnesty International on Thursday accused Ukraine of putting civilians at risk by deploying troops in residential areas in a report that Kyiv likened to Russian propaganda and disinformation. Ukraine and the West, which describe Russia’s actions as an imperial-style unprovoked war of aggression, say Russian forces must withdraw to their positions by February 24, when President Vladimir Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine. Moscow, which regularly talks about the need to push its forces deeper into Ukraine, seems unlikely to agree to do so voluntarily.
NATO warning
Ukraine said the Russian offensive in the east looked like an attempt to force it to divert troops from the south, where Kiev’s forces are trying to regain ground and destroy Russian supply lines as a prelude to a wider counteroffensive. “The idea is to put military pressure on us in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk in the coming weeks… What happens in the east is not what will determine the outcome of the war,” Ukrainian Presidential Adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said in an interview with YouTube. General Oleksiy Gromov said Russia may launch its own offensive in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson to try to regain momentum in the war after building up its forces there. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday that the war was the most dangerous time for Europe since World War II and that Russia must not be allowed to win it. To prevent Moscow from succeeding, NATO and its member states may need to support Ukraine with weapons and other aid for a long time to come, he said. “It is in our interest that this kind of aggressive policy does not succeed,” Stoltenberg said in a speech in Norway. Amid fears among some politicians in the West that Russia’s ambitions may extend beyond Ukraine, Stoltenberg warned Putin that the response to such a move by the Western military alliance would be overwhelming. “If President Putin even thinks about doing something similar in a NATO country as he has done in Georgia, Moldova or Ukraine, then all of NATO will be involved immediately,” Stoltenberg said. The war led formerly non-aligned Finland and Sweden to seek NATO membership, with the request so far ratified by 23 of the 30 member states, including the United States. Russia, which shares a long land border with Finland, has repeatedly warned Finland and Sweden against joining NATO.
