Both Russia and Ukraine claim front-line progress

Kyiv: Russian and Ukrainian officials are making contradictory claims of battlefield successes in their 4-year-old war, with Ukraine saying it has pushed Moscow’s forces back in some places on the front line but the Kremlin insisting that Russia’s invasion of its neighbour is making progress.

At the same time, Russia’s almost daily aerial attacks on civilian areas of Ukraine continue. Three powerful glide bombs struck the centre of the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, killing four people, the head of the Donetsk regional military administration, Vadym Filashkin, said on Tuesday. At least 16 other people, including a 14-year-old girl, were wounded.

Overnight drone strikes on three other Ukrainian cities wounded at least 17 people, including two children, emergency services said on Tuesday.

Ukraine’s air force said that it shot down 122 out of 137 drones that Russia launched during the night.

US-brokered talks between Russia and Ukraine are on hold as Washington’s attention is gripped by the Iran war, which has drawn the international spotlight from Ukraine’s plight as it strives to hold back Russia’s bigger army.

Despite being short of soldiers, Ukrainian forces have recently retaken nearly all the territory of the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk industrial region during a counteroffensive, driving Russian troops out of more than 400 square kilometres (150 square miles), Maj. Gen. Oleksandr Komarenko said in an interview published Tuesday by local media outlet RBC-Ukraine.

He described the overall situation on the front line as difficult but under control, with the heaviest fighting continuing near Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine and Oleksandrivka in the south, where he said Russian forces have concentrated their main effort.