Ukraine’s forces faced dozens of attacks in eastern regions as Kyiv again urged allies to send much-needed ammunition and led events to mark 10 years since the Maidan revolution, which turned the country away from Russia and aligned it with the West.
Moscow said its troops were taking up stronger positions around the recently captured town of Avdiivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region and denounced a Russian military pilot who defected to Kyiv last year and was found shot dead in southern Spain last week.
“Over the past 24 hours, 81 combat clashes took place. In total, the enemy launched seven missile strikes, 87 air strikes and 137 attacks with multi-launch rocket systems on the positions of our troops and on populated areas,” Ukraine’s military said on Tuesday.
Kyiv said it shot down 23 attack drones and that five civilians were killed in a border village in the northern Sumy region when a Russian drone dropped explosives on a house.
Ukraine’s military reported heavy fighting in recent days around Avdiivka and the occupied town of Bakhmut, near Kupiansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region, and close to villages in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia province that Kyiv liberated last summer.
“The situation is extremely difficult in several parts of the frontline, where Russian troops have amassed maximum reserves,” said Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
“They are taking advantage of delays in aid to Ukraine…There is a deficit of artillery. There is a need for front-line air defence and longer range weapons. We are working with our partners as hard as possible to resume and extend support,” he added.
Ukrainian troops have been forced to limit their artillery fire against bigger and better supplied Russian units in recent weeks due to the refusal of US Republican congressmen to approve a $60 billion (€55 billion) package of military aid for Kyiv.
Mr Zelenskiy and his wife Olena visited a memorial in Kyiv to what Ukrainians call their “Heavenly Hundred” – more than 100 protesters killed by police during anti-corruption and pro-democracy protests on the capital Kyiv’s Maidan square a decade ago.
The deadliest day of the revolution was February 20th, 2014, and Ukraine’s then president Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia the following night, after which Moscow quickly annexed Crimea and fomented fighting in the east that it escalated into a full-scale invasion two years ago.
“Today, Ukraine honours the memory of their feat. The memory of how Ukrainians can fight for their freedom. In the squares, on the barricades, and today – at the front,” Mr Zelenskiy said.
“The memory that in the most difficult moments of history we never give up. We stand for each other…The memory that 10 years ago Ukrainians decided once and for all that we want and will live only in a European state,” he added.
“All this is an incentive for us today. To defend our land. To defend our freedom. To defend our tomorrow. To defend our Ukraine.”
Meanwhile, sources in Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency confirmed media reports that Maxim Kuzminov – who flew his Russian military helicopter to Ukraine last year to defect – had been found dead in Alicante in southern Spain. He had been shot a least half a dozen times and was run over by a car, according to the Spanish state news agency Efe.
“This traitor and criminal became a moral corpse at the very moment when he planned his dirty and terrible crime,” said Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service.
