Ukrainian troops are continuing their offensive in the Zaporizhia region, in the south of Ukraine, where their priority is to conquer the Tokmak fortress as soon as possible, which Kyiv has intensively bombarded in recent hours in order to knock out the Russian invaders, reports EFE. agency on Sunday, taken over by Agerpres.

At the same time, heavy artillery and Russian aircraft are trying to slow down the Ukrainian counteroffensive along the entire southern front, where several thousand reinforcements are said to have arrived.

The Ukrainian General Staff announced on Sunday about new offensives on Melitopol, the main city of the Zaporizhia region, which is held by the Russians.

According to the report, it seems that the assault units managed to push the enemy further south and strengthen their positions in the area of ​​the city of Verbove, which is on the way to Tokmak.

The American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) confirmed that over the past 96 hours, Kyiv managed to approach the outskirts of the city of Verbove with armored vehicles.

In general, ISV notes that the defenses that the Ukrainian army managed to break through this week are not the last line of Russian defense in western Zaporizhzhia, but only part of the fortifications erected by the Russians, which include minefields, anti-tank ditches and “dragon’s teeth”.

At the same time, the Ukrainians attack Novoprokopivka, a village located one and a half kilometers south of Robotyny, in the direction of Verbovoy.

Regarding the continuation of the offensive, ISW shares Kyiv’s opinion that “General Winter” should not be an insurmountable obstacle, although it clarifies that everything will depend on the balance of forces between the two sides and the arrival of new supplies of Western weapons to Kyiv.

Pro-Russian authorities reported Ukrainian artillery shelling the town of Tokmak on Saturday and Sunday, killing one person and wounding 11 earlier today.

For its part, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that Russian aviation and artillery managed to destroy one of the positions of the 65th Ukrainian mechanized brigade near Robotyny.

According to him, up to 35 enemy soldiers were killed during the shelling, and four units of military equipment were destroyed.

Moscow’s representative in Zaporizhzhia, Volodymyr Rogov, claims that for “almost a month” the weather will allow the Ukrainian army to maintain its current strategy regarding Tokmak.

Instead, he claims, with the arrival of cold, rain and slime, the Ukrainians will focus on the crossing of the Dnipro to regain control of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, located near the city of Energodar, also in Zaporizhzhia.

At the same time, according to ISW, Kyiv is insisting – it seems – on continuing to strike Russian positions around Bakhmut (eastern part of Donetsk region), against US recommendations, in an attempt to force Moscow to concentrate its forces in the area so as not to transfer reinforcements to the southern front .

In addition, in Kursk, the capital of the Kursk region of Russia on the border with Ukraine, a drone struck an administrative building, which, according to Ukrainian special services, belongs to the Federal Security Service (FSB, formerly the KGB).

The governor of the Kursk region, Roman Staravoyt, reported in Telegram that the roof of the building was slightly damaged as a result of the shelling.

However, “this is not so. It was a direct blow,” says a Ukrainian source.

The RBC-Ukraine news agency published a video on social networks showing a column of black smoke over the city where the largest tank battle in history took place in 1943 between the Soviet army and Nazi troops.

In addition, Kyiv also announced an attack on an oil refinery near the Kursk airfield.

For this reason, local authorities had to cancel volleys on the occasion of the Day of the city, founded almost a thousand years ago (1032).

Ukrainian military intelligence also reported a sabotage operation against two military garrisons in the Moscow and Kaluga regions, where four motorized vehicles and a tank were destroyed.

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