(CTN NEWS) – KYIV, Ukraine – Russian soldiers continued to shell Ukrainian cities over the weekend as they pushed relentlessly to take more territory in the country’s east.
According to Ukrainian officials, Moscow is encountering difficulties beginning its eagerly awaited large-scale attack there.
The shelling of Nikopol, a city in the southeast of the Dnipropetrovsk region, resulted in one death and one injury on Sunday morning, according to Gov. Serhii Lysak.
The shelling damaged four residential structures, a vocational school, and a water treatment plant.
According to regional governor Oleh Syniehubov, three Russian S-300 missiles struck infrastructure facilities overnight in Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine.
According to the Russian military, the city’s Malyshev equipment plant is where armored vehicle manufacturing workshops were struck.
On Saturday night, Ukrainian forces shot down five drones over the partially seized Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions: four Shahed killing drones and one Orlan-10 reconnaissance drone.
In total, during the previous 24 hours, Russian forces have attacked Ukraine with 12 missiles, 32 airstrikes, over 90 rounds of rocket-launcher fire, and more, according to the General Staff of Ukraine.
In the eastern industrial heartland of Donbas, which includes the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, Russian soldiers attempt to seize more territory while the attacks occur.
As the battle nears the one-year mark, Ukrainian and Western authorities have issued warnings that Russia could begin a fresh, extensive offensive there to change the course of the fight.
However, according to Ukrainian officials, Moscow is having difficulty launching such an operation.
Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said on Ukrainian television on Saturday night that “they are experiencing tremendous difficulty with a big offensive.”
They have started their offensive, even if they won’t admit it, and our troops fiercely oppose it. They have already started to progressively carry out their planned onslaught. But it’s not the offensive they anticipated, according to Danilov.
A U.S.-based research group pointed out that pro-Kremlin military bloggers in Russia are also skeptical of Moscow’s capacity to mount a comprehensive offensive in Ukraine.
According to the Institute for the Study of War’s most recent study, they “continue to appear disillusioned at the Kremlin’s prospects for carrying out a major offensive.”
The owner of the Russian Wagner Group, a private military contractor heavily engaged in the combat in Ukraine, predicted earlier this week that the conflict might last for years.
In a late-Friday video interview, Yevgeny Prigozhin said that Russia could take up to two years to fully regain control of Donbas. He said that the conflict might last for three years if Moscow decides to seize larger areas east of the Dnieper River.
The millionaire Prigozhin, has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and has earned the nickname “Putin’s chef” for his lucrative catering contracts with the Kremlin.
Made the statement as a sign of recognition for the challenges the Kremlin had encountered in the campaign, which it had originally anticipated would be over in weeks when Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24.
When the Ukrainian military launched effective counteroffensives to retake large portions of land in the east and the south, Russia suffered a string of humiliating failures.
Wagner combatants have reportedly taken control of the Krasna Hora settlement north of Bakhmut, a vital city that has been the centre of a battle in recent months, according to Prigozhin on Sunday.
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