Zelensky at advanced positions in Bakhmut
Published on: Sunday, July 30, 2023
By: AFP
Zelensky (4THright) said he heard a commander’s report and spoke with the troops, praising their ‘truly heroic’ performance.
KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday he was visiting “advanced positions” of Ukraine’s special forces near the hotspot of Bakhmut as Kyiv ramps up its counter-offensive.
“The Bakhmut direction, advanced positions of the Special Operations Forces,” Zelensky said on messaging app Telegram.
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“I am here to congratulate our warriors on their professional day, to honour their strength.”
Zelensky said he was not at liberty to disclose details of the special forces’ current operations.
He said he heard a commander’s report and spoke with the troops, praising their “truly heroic” performance.
Ukraine last month began its highly anticipated fightback after stockpiling Western weapons and building up its offensive forces.
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Kyiv has however admitted difficult battles and called on the United States and other allies to provide long-range weapons and artillery.
Ukrainian authorities have said Kyiv’s troops are gradually moving forward near the eastern city of Bakhmut, which Russian forces seized in May.
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A Russian missile struck an apartment block in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, Kyiv officials said, injuring at least nine people including two children.
“Dnipro. Another terrorist attack,” said Sergiy Kruk, head of the Ukrainian State Emergency Service, on Telegram.
“Currently, we know of 9 injured, including two children. Work continues.”
Internal Affairs Minister Igor Klymenko earlier reported “a Russian strike on a multistorey building in Dnipro”, saying five people had been injured.
Videos posted on social media showed smoke billowing from the top floors of a residential building that had been badly damaged.
In Brisbane, Australia, Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday said that the United States believes Russia’s defence minister is in North Korea to secure supplies of weapons to aid the stalled invasion of Ukraine.
Following Sergei Shoigu’s arrival on a rare trip to Pyongyang, Blinken said that Russia is scrambling to buy arms from allies across the world.
“I strongly doubt he’s there on holiday,” Blinken told reporters in Australia.
“We’re seeing Russia desperately looking for support, for weapons, wherever it can find them to continue to prosecute its aggression against Ukraine,” he said.
“We see that in North Korea, we see that as well with Iran, which has provided many drones to Russia that it’s using to destroy civilian infrastructure and killed civilians in Ukraine.”
While in North Korea, Shoigu met the country’s leader Kim Jong Un, in what Pyongyang’s state media described as “a friendly talk.”
Russia, a historic ally of North Korea, is one of a handful of nations with which Pyongyang maintains friendly relations.
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