OUR Ukraine announced today that he was forced to give way East End country, as its troops were attacked by Russian troops.

President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky This week, he called “hell” the pressure his country’s armed forces are under in the Donbass in eastern Ukraine. He spoke about the fierce fighting around the city of Avdiivka and the fortified village of Peski, where in recent days Kyiv has succumbed to “partial success” to its Russian rivals.

The Ukrainian military said today that Russian troops launched at least two attacks on Pesky, but the Ukrainian military managed to repel them.

Over the past eight years, Ukraine has bolstered its defensive positions in Pisky, viewing it as a buffer zone against Russian-backed forces that control the city of Donetsk about 10km to the southeast.

General Oleksiy Gromov told a press conference that Ukrainian forces had recaptured two villages around the eastern town of Sloviansk but were driven back to the outskirts of the town of Avdiivka after being forced to leave a coal mine that was considered a key defensive position.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed its attack.

He said his forces had inflicted heavy casualties on Ukrainian forces in the Avdiivka area and two other areas in the Donetsk region, forcing the Kyiv infantry units to retreat.

Reuters is unable to confirm either party’s claims at this time.

Video footage released by the Russian Defense Ministry shows Russian rocket launchers in action and tanks advancing and firing at high speed across open terrain. It is not clear where they were filmed.

According to unconfirmed reports, Russian-backed forces have reached the outskirts of Piski.

Ukraine, equipped with advanced Western weapons systems, is also striking Russia-backed forces in the region.

Officials in the Russia-backed self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic said today that at least five people have been killed and six injured in Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk.

Footage posted on social media shows bodies, some of them dismembered, on the side of a street in central Donetsk. There is blood on the pavement.

Pavel Kirilenko, the Ukrainian governor of Donetsk, told Telegram that in the past 24 hours, Russian shelling in Bakhmut, Maryinka and Shevchenko has killed three civilians and injured five.

According to him, eight people were killed and four were injured as a result of the shelling of Russian artillery in the Donetsk city of Toretsk.

Russia, which denies deliberately targeting civilians, has said it plans to take full control of the large Donetsk region, one of the two that make up the industrial Donbass, in what it calls a “special military operation” to ensure its security from what he claims is an unjustified expansion of NATO.

Ukraine and the West, which characterize Russia’s actions as an unprovoked imperialist war of aggression, say Russian troops should withdraw to positions they held prior to February 24, when President Vladimir Putin sent tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine.

Moscow, which has often spoken of the need to send its troops deep into Ukraine, seems unlikely to agree to do so voluntarily.

Ukraine has said the Russian offensive in the east appears to be an attempt to force it to withdraw troops from the south, where Kyiv forces are trying to retake positions and destroy Russian supply lines ahead of a broader counteroffensive.

“The idea is to put military pressure on us in Kharkov. Donetsk and Luhansk in the next few weeks… It’s not what happens in the east that will determine the outcome of the war,” Olokshey Arestovich, an adviser to the President of Ukraine, said in an interview with YouTube.

General Aleksei Gromov said Russia could launch its own offensive in the southern part of the Kherson region in an attempt to gain momentum in the war after strengthening its forces there.

^{Source: APE-MEB, Reuters}