Ukraine hails Bakhmut gains and steps up attacks on occupied Luhansk

A senior Russian-installed official was injured in an explosion in Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, as Kyiv’s forces stepped up attacks on the occupied city and claimed to be pushing back Moscow’s troops around the town of Bakhmut for the first time in months.

Local media said a bomb exploded in a barber’s shop on Monday in central Luhansk, which Russian officials say has come under attack in recent days from Storm Shadow cruise missiles supplied to Ukraine by Britain. The city, which has been held by Moscow-led separatists since 2014, has until now been out of reach of Kyiv’s arsenal.

“As a result of the explosion in the centre of Luhansk, seven people were injured…Four men are in a serious condition, among them a 17-year-old boy, as well as acting minister of internal affairs (in occupied Luhansk), Igor Kornet. Doctors are fighting for the lives of the victims,” said Leonid Pasechnik, head of the region’s occupation administration.

[ Finbar Cafferkey died in fighting to retain control of vital supply route to Bakhmut ]

The blast took place just hours after two other explosions in Luhansk, which Russian military bloggers attributed to Ukrainian strikes using Storm Shadow cruise missiles that have a range of more than 250km – considerably longer than anything else in Kyiv’s armoury.

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Britain announced delivery of the missiles last Thursday, and the next morning they were allegedly used to hit two factories in Luhansk that were reportedly being used by the Russian military.

The foreign ministry in Moscow called Britain’s move “an extremely hostile step…leading to a serious escalation of the situation” and said London was “obviously ready to cross any boundaries and take the conflict to a fundamentally new level in terms of destruction and loss of life.”

Russia claimed on Monday that its forces had shot down one Storm Shadow, without offering evidence, at a time when the state of its air defences is in question following the unexplained downing of at least two Russian fighter jets and two military helicopters near the Ukrainian border on Saturday and a drone strike on the Kremlin earlier this month that Moscow blamed on Kyiv.

Each side is using missiles and drones to target enemy command posts and fuel and arms depots behind the frontlines in a bid to weaken the other’s attack potential, as Ukraine gears up for a counteroffensive against Russia’s invasion force.

[ More missiles but no jets for Zelenskiy as he meets Sunak in Britain ]

Ukrainian officials said four people were killed in a Russian missile strike on the front-line town of Avdiivka in the partly occupied Donetsk region, and two died in shelling of the Kharkiv region.

After fighting for months to prevent Russia taking the town of Bakhmut in Donetsk region, Ukraine’s military said it was now pushing back Moscow’s forces in the area, which are led by fighters of the Wagner mercenary group.

“The advance of our troops in the Bakhmut area is the first success of offensive actions during the operation for the defence of Bakhmut. The last few days have shown that we can move forward and destroy the enemy even in such extremely difficult conditions,” said Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukrainian ground forces.

“We are fighting with fewer resources than the enemy. At the same time, we manage to wreck his plans…However, this is only a partial success. And that is how it should be perceived. The operation to defend Bakhmut continues.”

Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner group, has lambasted senior Russian political and military officials for their conduct of the battle for Bakhmut, in rare public criticism of the Moscow regime.

On Monday, he denied a report in the Washington Post that he had offered to reveal Russian troop positions to Ukraine’s military if it withdrew its forces from Bakhmut.

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2023