Rostyslav Averchuk
LEOPOLIS (Ukraine), May 2 (EFE) .- The Ukrainian authorities have begun the evacuations of the civil population of Dnipropetrovsk due to the intensification of the efforts of the Russian troops to enter this region of the center of the country before the celebration this May 9, 80 anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union in World war Washington as kyiv.
The evacuation of families with children ordered by the regional authorities on Tuesday is underway in seven locations near the areas where active fighting in the neighboring region of Donetsk are produced. The Russian forces are between 4 and 6 kilometers from the borders of the Dnipropetrovsk region.
“Some families cling until the last moment to hope that the evacuation will not be necessary,” Dnipropetrovsk governor, Serguí Lisak, said in his Telegram account. “But the Russians attack civilians with guided air bombs and drones,” he added in the midst of the information on the resurgence of the attacks.
Ukrainian military and analysts warn that Russia has changed priority in the Donetsk region, particularly next to the town of Pokrovsk, and now seeks to reach DNIPROPETROVSK.
“With this objective, the Russian command displays new units every day, sacrifices its soldiers and claims illusory successes,” said the head of the Ukrainian army, Oleksandr Sirski on Telegram this week.
Russia has also intensified its attacks on Dnipropetrovsk in southeastern Donetsk, according to the spokesman for the southern command of the Ukraine Armed Forces, Vladislav Voloshin.
Captured Russian soldiers claim to have received orders to enter Dnipropetrovsk before May 9, a date of symbolic importance for Russia, which then celebrates the victory of the Red Army over the Nazis. Russia links this date with an invasion of Ukraine that presents as a campaign against a neo -Nazi regime and its foreign allies.
According to military analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko, Russian efforts to achieve Dnipropetrovsk are part of a political operation to demonstrate the power of the Russian army and press kyiv to accept a high fire in the terms of Moscow.
In a recent analysis for the informative resistance group, Kovalenko points out that Russian military actions in the vicinity of the region lack military logic, since Russian rapid advances towards Dnipropetrovsk would exhibit Russian forces that are already going through difficulties in Donetsk to Ukrainian attacks from the flanks.
“Russia does not have the strength and equipment necessary to achieve significant advances in Dnipropetrovsk or anywhere else in the front,” Melnik, international security analyst at kyiv’s Razumkov center, tells Efe Oleksí Melnik.
Despite this, the expert warns, the Ukrainian forces have trouble braking the Russians due to the lack of resources and personnel facing kyiv’s troops after more than three years of war.
In recent days, the Russian forces have advanced several hundred meters towards Dnipropetrovsk near the town of Uspenivka, next to Pokrovsk, but they continue between 4 and 6 kilometers from the administrative borders of the region, according to the Ukrainian platform for the Deepstate War analysis.
“Neither these Russian advances nor the evacuations of civilians have anything extraordinary, because Russia threatens the region for quite some time,” said an army officer and military blogger on Telegram who uses the name of ‘Aleks’.
“The front has not collapsed, the fight continues, and our soldiers fight and pour blood for each meter of Ukrainian earth,” he emphasizes.
According to Deepstate, Russia conquered in April 175 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory, for the 133 square kilometers achieved in March. The new conquered territory is close to the towns of Toretsk and Kostiantinopil, in Donetsk.
However, the advances remain slow if compared to 503 and 730 square kilometers that fell into Russian hands in October and November, when the Moscow offensive reached its zenith.
Russia prepares an offensive for this summer for which it will resort to assaults with motorcycles with the aim of evading Ukrainian drones, according to Efe Kovalenko, which also foresees an intensification of drone attacks and missiles against civilians in DniproPetrovsk and beyond the front line.
Meanwhile, Kovalenko points out, Ukraine works to overcome mobilization challenges and to improve the quality of his military command. EFE
