The Ukrainian authorities denounced on Thursday new and intense attacks by Russian troops in different parts of the east and south of the country, with at least 14 deaths in the Bakhmut and Nikopol regions, a hundred kilometers from the Zaporizhia plant. Nikopol Governor Valentin Reznichenko reported three dead and nine wounded in Russian overnight bombardments. In Donbass, the head of the military administration of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kirilenko, announced the death of eleven civilians in the last 24 hours: six in Bakhmut, three in Soledar, one in Krasnogorivka and one in Avdivka.
In Soledar, the few remaining residents live in underground shelters. Russian troops try to expel the Ukrainian army from there in order to advance towards Bakhmut. In that region there are several strategic points for the industrial fabric of Donbass.
In addition there were at least three dead and seven injured in Nikopol, in the south of the country. Some 40 residential buildings were damaged in various towns in this region, in addition to three schools and several businesses, as well as electrical installations, which left six thousand people without power supply according to their regional authorities. Rescue teams continued to remove debris from residential buildings in search of missing persons, according to the state agency Ukrinform.
In the meantime Russian authorities remain confused about last Tuesday’s attack on the Saki airbase in Russian-occupied Crimeamore than 225 kilometers from Moscow’s defense lines, which destroyed at least eight Russian planes and several buildings, says the Institute for War Studies (ISW). As published by this group of American experts, the satellite images confirmed the reports of the Ukrainian air force, which contradicts Russian claims that the explosions did not damage any aircraft and were not the result of an attack.
