KYIV (AFP) – Ukraine fought off a fresh Russian assault on the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut, its leaders said on Saturday, as it endured a wave of shelling in the disputed Donetsk region.
Officials meanwhile recovered the bodies of two British volunteers, killed trying to help evacuate people from the eastern warzone.
And the southern city of Odesa suffered a massive power cut affecting half a million households after an accident at a war-damaged electrical substation.
“This week, the Russian occupation forces threw all their efforts into breaking through our defence and encircling Bakhmut, and launched a powerful offensive in the Lyman sector,” said Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar.
“But thanks to the resilience of our soldiers, they did not succeed.”
Ukraine’s border guard service reported that its soldiers had stopped the latest attack, killing four and wounding seven of the opposing forces.
Russia unleashed a fresh wave of bombardment across the eastern frontlines on Saturday morning. Ukrainian officials reported shelling in the Chernigiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv Lugansk, Donetsk and Mykolaiv regions.
In his evening address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged that the situation was getting tougher.
Russia, he said, was “throwing more and more of its forces at breaking down our defence”.
“It is very difficult now in Bakhmut, Vugledar, Lyman and other areas,” he added, referring to the frontline cities in the east of the country.
France, Italy and the United States on Friday all promised fresh deliveries of weapons to Ukraine.
Canada on Saturday shipped the first of four promised Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, Defence Minister Anita Anand said on Twitter.
Germany’s leader said in an interview there was agreement that weapons supplied by the West would not be used to attack Russian territory.
“There is a consensus on this point,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the weekly Bild am Sonntag. Kyiv, while expressing its gratitude for the pledged weapons, is already pressing for more, including fighter jets.
Officials in Kyiv said on Saturday that the bodies of the two Britons killed while trying to help people evacuate from the eastern warzone had been recovered in a prisoner swap.
Chris Parry, 28, and Andrew Bagshaw, 47, were undertaking voluntary work in Soledar, in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, when their vehicle was reportedly hit by a shell.
