Ukraine launches offensive push in north of Donetsk region, senior commander says

Ukrainian forces have launched an offensive operation in the north of the eastern Donetsk region, the focal point of intense battles during more than four years of the war, a senior military commander said on Tuesday.

The third army corps cleared an area of 75 square kilometers (29 square miles) of Russian infiltration groups and recaptured a further 10 square kilometers, said Brigadier-General Andrii Biletskyi, who has commanded Ukraine’s defense in the vicinity since last month.

Biletskyi said the area lay north of the region’s key strongholds — the so-called “fortress belt” of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk — whose capture would bring Russia closer to its goal of seizing the entire region.

“The third army corps has started offensive operation at this direction. The operation is called ‘Vivaldi’,” Biletskyi said in a video uploaded on the Telegram app.

Biletskyi said that his troops disrupted Russian military logistics, cleared three villages and an area around a fourth. A village called Serednie was fully under Ukrainian control.

The Donetsk region has seen most of the fiercest battles of the war. Russia wants to control all of it, Moscow’s main territorial demand at negotiations that have so far stalled but which the U.S. wants to restart, with envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff visiting Moscow and Kyiv this month.

Russia’s total advances had slowed this year, but its forces have been bearing down on the cities from the south and infiltrating deeper into the eastern city of Kostiantynivka.

Reuters was not able to verify Biletskyi’s assertions. Independently determining lines of territorial control in Ukraine is difficult because of drone warfare that has created a wide no-man’s land “kill zone” along the front.

The reported gains in the Donetsk region would add to Ukraine’s push earlier this year in the southeast, where Kyiv said it clawed back more than 700 square kilometers of territory during a months-long counterattack.

一位高级军事指挥官周二表示，乌克兰军队已在东部顿涅茨克地区北部发动进攻行动，该地区是四年多战争中激烈战斗的焦点。

据自上个月以来一直指挥乌克兰在该地区防御的安德烈·比列茨基准将称，第三军清除了75平方公里（29平方英里）的俄罗斯渗透小组，并重新夺回了另外10平方公里的土地。

比列茨基表示，该地区位于该地区主要据点——斯拉维扬斯克和克拉马托尔斯克的所谓“堡垒带”——的北部，攻占这些据点将使俄罗斯更接近其占领整个地区的目标。

“第三军已在该方向展开进攻行动。此次行动代号为‘维瓦尔第’，”比列茨基在上传至 Telegram 应用的视频中说道。

比列茨基称，他的部队破坏了俄军的后勤补给，肃清了三个村庄和第四个村庄周围的区域。一个名为谢列德涅的村庄完全处于乌克兰的控制之下。

顿涅茨克地区是这场战争中最激烈战斗的发生地。俄罗斯想要控制整个顿涅茨克地区，这是莫斯科在谈判中提出的主要领土要求。谈判目前陷入僵局，但美国希望重启谈判，并已派出特使贾里德·库什纳和史蒂夫·威特科夫于本月访问莫斯科和基辅。

今年俄罗斯的整体推进速度有所放缓，但其军队正从南部向城市施压，并进一步渗透到东部城市科斯蒂安蒂尼夫卡。

路透社无法核实比列茨基的说法。由于无人机战争在前线造成了大片无人区“杀伤区”，因此独立确定乌克兰的领土控制线十分困难。

据报道，顿涅茨克地区的战果将进一步巩固乌克兰今年早些时候在东南部的攻势。基辅方面表示，经过数月的反击，乌克兰在东南部夺回了超过 700 平方公里的领土。