Zelensky Says Kremlin Assaults Contained, but Pace of Russian Attacks Not Slowing Much

A multiple-axis assault by Kremlin forces has not stopped and is even gaining ground in a few locations, although the pace of attacks across the front is slowing, frontline sources reported on Tuesday.

In comments to French media on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv’s forces had effectively brough Russian attacks across the front to a halt. According to the Presidential website the Ukrainian leader said: “At present Russian advance in the east has been stopped by our commanders and troops… at the present, tactically, their advance is stopped, and they are losing large numbers of people.”

The Ukrainian Army General Staff (AGS) in a Tuesday morning situation update reported anything but stable battle lines, with heavy Russian ground and air attacks continuing in key sectors of the fighting line.

The official army statement repeated Zelensky’s claim Ukrainian lines were holding, while cataloging dozens of Russian assaults from multiple sectors across the Russo-Ukrainian War’s 1,500-kilometer fighting line, collectively documenting a wide-reaching Kremlin offensive launched in February was continuing mostly unabated.

Over the past 24 hours, territory to the west of Avdiivka, a battleground city abandoned by Ukrainian forces last month, was still the most violent region of the front, that report said, with Kyiv’s forces repelling 16 separate infantry and armor attacks against the Ukraine army-held villages Berdychi, Orlivka, Tonenke, Pervomaiske and Nevelske, the AGS report said.

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Images published on Monday by Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, a backbone formation for Kyiv defenses in the Avdiivka sector, recorded more than a dozen Russian T-80 tanks, BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles and BTR-80 armored personnel carriers burning in fields to the west of the city following a failed large-scale Russian attack.

Ukrainian drone strikes and artillery fire brought the assault force of 10-15 fighting vehicles to a stop as it entered a minefield, a unit statement said. Some abandoned vehicles showed signs of having been hit by multiple Ukrainian FPV drones. All Russian vehicles destroyed by the robot aircraft carried add-on steel grates or sandbagging as additional protection against drones, video published by the combat unit Strike Drones Company showed.

Pro-Russian information platforms on Tuesday afternoon claimed Kremlin forces still were gaining ground in the hard-fought Avdiivka sector and that the village Nevelske, to the south-west of the city, was captured by advancing Moscow troops. Official Ukrainian army statements of the morning claimed the village was under Kyiv’s control. The independent DeepState military information platform reported troops from both sides on Tuesday held sections of the village.

The Washington-based Institute for Study of War (ISW) in a Monday situation update said Russian attacks had taken place across the Avdiivka sector, but called the fighting “positional.” The report said milblogger claims of advances of 200 to 300 meters around the village Orlivka were “unconfirmed.”

Russian troops also launched a wave of attacks in Ukraine’s northeastern Luhansk region, with defending troops in the area counting 15 separate Russian assaults aimed at defenses around the town Bilohorivka and the villages Hryhorivka and Terna. A Russian Defense Ministry statement on Tuesday said Moscow’s forces were battering defenses manned by Ukraine’s 79th Air Assault and 81st Airmobile Brigades, and gaining ground.

Russian forces on Monday morning launched a night attack led by tank and armored infantry against 79th Brigade positions near the town Novomykhailivka, statements from the unit said. Kremlin forces lost at least 12 armored vehicles including tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to Ukrainian artillery and drones, video published by the brigade on Monday showed.

Russian forces also attacked in the eastern Donetsk sector around the villages of Klishchiivka, Andriivka, Stupochky and Chasiv Yar, and the southern Zaporizhzhia sector around the villages Robotyne and Staromaiorske.

Although the intensity of Russian attacks has fallen off moderately from a peak seen in late February, in some sectors Ukrainian troops were reporting ammunition and manpower shortages. One formation reporting substantial Russian pressure, in its unit Telegram feed, was 110th Mechanized Brigade, the unit forced by Russian forces out of Avdiivka in February.

Among other losses the Ukrainian military claimed over the day to have killed or severely wounded more than 900 Russian soldiers, and put out of action more than 60 units of major military equipment like tanks, artillery pieces or infantry fighting vehicles. Kyiv Post could not confirm the Ukrainian army claims.

According to data compiled by Icelandic researcher Ragnar Gudmundsson, over the past week Russian losses of major weapons systems as claimed by Kyiv had fallen off about 8 percent.