Ukrainian army reports 'partial successes' in its counteroffensive

The Ukrainian army says it is continuing to attack Russian troops on two important sections of the front in the east and south of the country with some success, the General Staff in Kiev announced in its situation report for Saturday morning.

South of the town of Bakhmut, there have been "partial successes" near the village of Andriyivka, the report said.

While Bakhmut is still in Russian hands, the Ukrainians have recaptured a strategically important railway line south of it in recent weeks. They are now expanding their positions on the other side of the railway.

On the southern front in the Zaporizhzhya region, there have also been "partial successes" north of the villages of Kopani and Novoprokopivka, the report said.

In this region, Ukrainian troops have been fighting their way through heavily fortified Russian defence lines featuring minefields, tank traps and trenches for weeks.

The fighting near Kopani and Novoprokopivka indicates that the Ukrainians are widening their breach of the Russian defences.

Military figures are often not independently verifiable. However, the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has also mentioned Ukrainian advances in its new report. But it said the Russian army had managed to exchange troop units on this section of the front, despite Ukrainian pressure.

Attacks by Russian ground troops were concentrated on the front sections of Kupyansk and Lyman in the east as well as Avdiivka and Maryinka near Donetsk, according to Ukrainian information.

However, they were repelled, according to the information. Along the almost 1,000-kilometre-long front, 120 Ukrainian villages were shelled by Russian artillery on Friday. Ukraine has been repelling the Russian invasion since February 2022.