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Russia tried to cross river in Donbas region, thwarted by Ukraine: UK
Russia-Ukraine war: The UK's defence ministry, in its latest update on Ukraine, also said Russia has failed to make ‘significant advances’ in the eastern part of the war-hit country.
In its latest update on the ground situation in Ukraine, which has been under a Russian invasion since February 24, the United Kingdom said on Friday Ukrainian forces prevented Russian troops from crossing a river in the Donbas region in southeast Ukraine. “Images indicate that during the crossing of the Siverskyi Donets river west of Severodonetsk, Russia lost significant armoured manoeuvre elements of at least one Battalion Tactical Group as well as the deployed pantaloon bridging equipment,” the UK’s ministry of defence said on Twitter.
It further emphasised that conducting a river crossing in a ‘contested environment’ is a ‘highly-risky’ manoeuvre, and, therefore, indicative of the pressure the Russian commanders are under to make progress in eastern Ukraine, where, it said, Moscow has failed to make significant advances despite withdrawing and redeploying units here from Kyiv and Chernihiv.
In more updates, the UK said Russia, in the cities of Izium and Severodonetsk, is trying to achieve a breakthrough towards Sloviansk and Kramatorsk in a bid to encircle the Ukrainian forces in ‘Joint Forces Operations area’, thus isolating them from support or reinforcement by units from the western part of the war-hit nation.
Meanwhile, speaking at the annual meeting of the foreign ministers of the G7 member states, British foreign secretary Liz Truss stressed on the need to supply more weapons to Kyiv to keep up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“It is very important at this time that we keep the pressure up on Putin by supplying more weapons to Ukraine, and by increasing the sanctions against Russia,” Truss said, referring to the UK and its allies.
(With AFP inputs)
