{"id":29541,"date":"2023-02-10T03:47:07","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T03:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=29541"},"modified":"2023-02-10T03:47:09","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T03:47:09","slug":"russia-launched-drone-and-missile-attacks-in-the-east-and-south-of-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2023\/02\/10\/russia-launched-drone-and-missile-attacks-in-the-east-and-south-of-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia launched drone and missile attacks in the east and South of Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Russia has launched a drone and missile attack on targets in the south and east of Ukraine, according to officials and local residents who reported hearing loud explosions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Air raid sirens sounded in much of the country late on Thursday night. Serhiy Lysak, the military administrator in the Dnipropetrovsk region, said Shahed drones were detected on their way to the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dnipro Info Telegram channel\u00a0reported the distinctive \u201cmoped-like\u201d sound of Iranian drones hovering in the sky. \u201cGet to shelters and stay there,\u201d it posted. At least one drone was shot down, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vitalii Kim, the governor of Mykolaiv oblast, said drones were spotted heading towards the regional capital, which has been repeatedly shelled since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion almost a year ago. \u201cNot that many of them,\u201d he wrote on his Telegram channel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the early hours of Friday morning, Russian forces launched a series of strikes that knocked out power supplies to parts of Kharkiv in the north-east.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were further reports of drones in Zaporizhzhia oblast where fighting is taking place across a sprawling frontline between Russian and Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian air defences were said to be working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the eastern Donbas, locals in the Ukrainian-controlled cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk said they could hear explosions. Both urban centres are close to Bakhmut, where fighting has raged for months. Russian troops have been seeking to encircle the city as a prelude to an attack on Kramatorsk, a key Ukrainian military hub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were further unconfirmed reports of 30-40 Shahed drones launched from occupied\u00a0Mariupol\u00a0and heading toward Ukrainian-controlled territory. The attack came hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy\u2019s trips to London, Paris and Brussels and\u00a0his address on Thursday to the European parliament, and meeting with EU leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The overnight barrage came hours after the governor for the Luhansk region said that Russia had launched a major offensive in eastern\u00a0Ukraine\u00a0and is trying to break through defences near the town of Kreminna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Serhiy Haidai\u00a0told Ukrainian TV\u00a0that Russian troops had gone on the attack and were trying to advance westwards across a winter landscape of snow and forests. There had been \u201cmaximum escalation\u201d and a big increase in shooting and shelling, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese attacks are practically a daily occurrence. We see small groups [of Russian soldiers] trying to advance, sometimes with the support of heavy armour \u2013 infantry fighting vehicles and tanks \u2013 and sometimes not. There is continuous firing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He claimed the offensive had not worked. \u201cSo far they haven\u2019t had any success. Our defenders have been able to hold them back completely,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Western governments believe Russia is planning a major assault on Ukraine, possibly as early as next week before the 24 February anniversary of the launch of its full-scale invasion. Its main goal is believed to be to capture the Donbas region, including Luhansk, which Ukraine partly controls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The timing of any attack in unknown. Ukrainian government sources say one scenario would include ballistic missile strikes on large cities including Kyiv, and an attempt to cut off the east of the country by bombing bridges and advancing in a sweeping arc from the north and south.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Military analysts are sceptical that Russia has enough infantry units to advance rapidly into Ukrainian territory. They acknowledge, however, that some sections of the Ukrainian-Russian border are lightly defended, with the bulk of Ukrainian forces located in the eastern Donetsk province where fighting rages around the city of Bakhmut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are growing signs that even with Russia\u2019s wider battle strategy unknown, a substantial offensive in the east has already started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russian forces, which dug in and brought in reinforcements after Ukrainian troops retook almost all of Kharkiv province and pushed into Luhansk last autumn, are now moving forward along a broad front west of the towns of Svatove and Kreminna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Punching through Ukrainian lines there would take Russian forces a step closer to the much larger city of Kramatorsk, a key Ukrainian military hub. Haidai said Ukraine needed \u201cheavy equipment and artillery ammunition, then we will not only be able to maintain the defence but also make a good counter-offensive operation\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Svatove and Kreminna, which lies about 60 miles (100km) north-west of the regional capital, Luhansk, were both occupied by Moscow last spring. Before the Ukrainian counter-offensive last year, Russia had control of Luhansk oblast, partly captured in 2014, bar a handful of villages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artur, a Ukrainian soldier fighting in Kreminna, said: \u201cThe fighting has intensified. They launched another offensive last night. So far we are holding our position, but it is tough. They attack in small groups, usually groups of 15 men. We have many injured but they have many more casualties.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) confirmed a \u201cmarked increase\u201d in operations in the area over the past week in its latest report. It said Russia had made marginal gains along the border between Kharkiv and Luhansk provinces, including in the village of Dvorichne. The offensive had probably not yet \u201creached its full tempo\u201d, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe commitment of significant elements of at least three major Russian divisions to offensive operations in this sector indicates the Russian offensive has begun, even if Ukrainian forces are so far preventing Russian forces from securing significant gains,\u201d the ISW report said<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russia has launched a drone and missile attack on targets in the south and east of Ukraine, according to officials and local residents who reported hearing loud explosions. Air raid sirens sounded in much of the country late on Thursday night. Serhiy Lysak, the military administrator in the Dnipropetrovsk region, said Shahed drones were detected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":29543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[461,12],"tags":[9747,12168,183,5304,11394,7602,9204,1904,11583,12758,9331,5262,7600,5995,6193,9506,7445,159,9505,2404,9567,9127,2264,12773,11111,5252,6086,10299,5342,5423,3684,6194,5657,9833,12309,5572,5254,5340,5766,7964,8890,11973,1253,1198,3805,11774,3457,5217,9634,5659,11233,11259,9271,1708,9832,5618,9176,9030,5376,9178,5180,5555,3080,6886,5251,3954,8964,594,8280,6874],"class_list":["post-29541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-world-news","tag-ammunition","tag-artillery","tag-assault","tag-attack","tag-attacks","tag-bakhmut","tag-border","tag-brussels","tag-capital","tag-captured","tag-city","tag-cut","tag-dnipro","tag-donbas","tag-donetsk","tag-drone","tag-drones","tag-eu","tag-european","tag-european-parliament","tag-explosions","tag-february","tag-government","tag-increase","tag-injured","tag-invasion","tag-kharkiv","tag-kramatorsk","tag-kyiv","tag-lies","tag-london","tag-luhansk","tag-mariupol","tag-meeting","tag-men","tag-military","tag-missile","tag-moscow","tag-mykolaiv","tag-north","tag-oblast","tag-one","tag-paris","tag-parliament","tag-president","tag-raid","tag-russia","tag-russian","tag-russian-border","tag-russian-soldiers","tag-russian-troops","tag-shot","tag-sky","tag-snow","tag-soldier","tag-soldiers","tag-spring","tag-success","tag-tanks","tag-troops","tag-ukraine","tag-ukrainian","tag-united-kingdom","tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy","tag-war","tag-will","tag-winter","tag-who","tag-zaporizhzhia","tag-zelenskiy"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}