- Ukraine says its troops push back Russians in southeast
- Mines hampering advances
- Counteroffensive making slower-than-hoped progress
- Russia is in the process of equipping its new nuclear submarines with hypersonic Zircon missiles
- The Russian multi-purposes frigate Admiral Gorshkov, which tested its strike capabilities in the western Atlantic Ocean earlier this year, has been already equipped with Zircon missiles
Ukraine reported fierce fighting along its entire front line and “some success” in pushing back Moscow’s troops in one part of the southeast where Ukrainian forces are trying to retake Russian-occupied territory. Progress has been hampered by widespread Russian-laid minefields and strong fortifications, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said.
But the Ukrainian military had pushed forward around the village of Staromaiorske, around 60 miles southwest of Russian-held Donetsk, and was pressing on two fronts in the south, Maliar said.
Troops were fighting for control of the neighbouring settlement of Urozhaine, she said. A Moscow-installed official in an occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region said on Sunday that Kyiv was attempting to pierce Russian lines by gaining a foothold in both villages.
“Hostilities are taking place in the vicinity of Urozhaine and the fight is for this particular locality,” Maliar said in a statement to an official military platform. “There is some success on the southern and southeast axes in the vicinity of Staromaiorske.”
Ukrainian forces have made incremental gains since kicking off their long-awaited operation in June, but officials in Kyiv have acknowledged that progress has been slower than they would have liked and hampered by rigid Russian defences.
Maliar added that the Ukrainian military managed to retake nearly 2 square miles during the past week around the ruined eastern city of Bakhmut, where Russian and Ukrainian forces fought the bloodiest battle of the nearly 18-month war. She also said Russian troops were continuing their assault around the eastern towns of Kupyansk and Lyman, where she said they were regrouping. “The Russians have intensified these offensives after the success of the Ukrainian army on the Bakhmut axis,” Maliar said.
Russia still controls around a fifth of Ukraine, including the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, the Luhansk region in the east, and swathes of the regions of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. The occupied territory includes most of Ukraine’s coastline and parts of its industrial heartland, the Donbas.
Russia is in the process of equipping its new nuclear submarines with hypersonic Zircon missiles, the head of Russia’s largest shipbuilder told the RIA state news agency in an interview published on Monday. “Multi-purpose nuclear submarines of the Yasen-M project will be equipped with the Zircon missile system on a regular basis,”, Alexei Rakhmanov, chief executive officer of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), told RIA.
Alexei Rakhmanov, chief executive officer of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, said work is “already underway” to fit Yasen-class submarines, otherwise known as Project 885M, with the sea-based hypersonic missiles.
The sea-based Zircon hypersonic missiles have a range of 900 km (560 miles), and can travel at several times the speed of sound, making it difficult to defend against them.
President Vladimir Putin said earlier this year that Russia would start mass supplies of Zircon missiles as part of the country’s efforts to boost its nuclear forces.
The Russian multi-purposes frigate Admiral Gorshkov, which tested its strike capabilities in the western Atlantic Ocean earlier this year, has been already equipped with Zircon missiles.
In Ukraine, at least three people were injured after a series of Russian drones and missiles hit the port city of Odesa, officials said. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pledged justice after Russian shelling on the southern Kherson region killed seven and injured several more Sunday.
Meantime, the Russian ruble slid past 100 per U.S. dollar on Monday, a psychologically important threshold for the country’s beleaguered currency.
(With inputs from agencies)
