New Delhi: Ukraine said on Tuesday (February 7, 2023) that the past 24 hours were the deadliest of the war for Russian troops ever as Moscow pressed on with an intense winter offensive in the east, bringing in tens of thousands of newly mobilized troops for the war. came to the field. The Ukrainian claim could not be independently verified and Russia has also claimed to have killed large numbers of Ukrainian soldiers in recent weeks. Enemy casualties on both sides have generally been viewed as incredible, and Kyiv has offered few details of the latest battles.
But claims that the fighting was its deadliest ever matched descriptions from both sides of a growing campaign of close-contact trench warfare that has left eastern Ukraine’s snow-covered battlefields littered with corpses.
A Marine unit of Ukraine’s armed forces fired rockets at Russian positions from a Soviet-era launch system near the town of Maryanka, about 30 km (18.6 miles) east of the city of Donetsk.
A soldier said, “They are trying to creep back and forth in small infantry groups. Even without previous artillery strikes (on Ukrainian positions), their infantry attempts to advance ”
He said, “The enemy adapted quite well, they learned as fast as they could. They adopted a variety of tactics.”
Kyiv and the West say Russia has been pouring troops and mercenaries into eastern Ukraine in recent weeks in the hope of being able to claim new gains by the time of the first anniversary of its full-scale invasion later this month .
A lieutenant in the Ukrainian unit, who gave his name as Volodymyr, said: “Targets are given to us by drone operators or our spotters – they observe where our rockets explode. Then, we correct the direction of our fire.” and launch again.”
The Ukrainian military increased its Russian military death toll from 1,030 to 133,190 overnight, describing the increase as the highest of the war so far. For its part, Russia said it had killed 6,500 Ukrainians in the month of January.
The war is soon entering its second year at a turning point, with Moscow attempting to recapture the initiative while Kyiv prepares for Western tanks to launch a counteroffensive later in 2023.
Moscow is now making full use of hundreds of thousands of troops in its first mobilization since World War Two, after Russia failed to capture Ukraine’s capital Kyiv last year and lose ground in the second half of 2022.
Russia has seen its first gains for half a year in the past few weeks. But progress has still been incremental, with Moscow yet to capture a single major population center in its winter campaign despite thousands of dead.
Fighting has been centered for months around Ukrainian-held Bakhmut in eastern Donetsk province, a town with a pre-war population of about 75,000. Russia has made clear progress toward encircling it from both the north and the south, but Kyiv says its outpost is fast catching up.
Moscow has also launched an offensive further south against Vuhladar, a Ukraine-controlled stronghold in Donetsk province on high ground at the strategic crossroads between the eastern and southern front lines.