(AFP) Ukraine on Sunday (16) admitted it is in a defensive position on the battlefront in the east of the country in the face of Moscow’s troops, while Russian President Vladimir Putin said Kiev’s counteroffensive was “unsuccessful”.
“For two days in a row, the enemy actively attacked the Kupiansk area in Kharkiv province. We are defending ourselves,” Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said.
She cited “fierce battles” and indicated that positions “change several times a day”.
Kiev has previously acknowledged that the counteroffensive faces difficulties and called on Western allies to provide more long-range weapons.
The deputy defense minister, however, insisted that Ukrainian forces “are gradually advancing in the Bakhmut region,” a town captured in May by Russia.
- Putin praises Russian resistance
Bakhmut had more than 70,000 inhabitants before the Russian offensive and was destroyed in the longest and fiercest battle since the invasion began in February 2022.
“In Bakhmut, we bomb the enemy and the enemy bombs us,” Hanna Maliar said.
At the same time, Putin said that the Ukrainian army’s counter-offensive, which aims to regain the territories occupied by Moscow in the east and south of the country, is unsuccessful.
“All attempts by the enemy to break through our defenses […] have been unsuccessful since the offensive began. The enemy has not succeeded,” Putin said in an interview with the Rossiya-1 channel aired on Sunday.
The head of state also considered that the situation is “positive” for Russian forces.
“Our troops are acting heroically. And, unexpectedly for the adversary, they are even going on the offensive in certain sectors and capturing more advantageous positions,” he said.
Ukraine began its long-awaited counteroffensive last month after amassing weapons supplied by the West and bolstering its attack capabilities.
Kiev’s counteroffensive is moving slowly in the face of Russian troops who have had time to establish solid defenses, including minefields, and who still possess significant firepower to attack Ukrainian forces.
This Sunday, the Ukrainian General Staff announced ongoing strike operations in the direction of Melitopol and Berdiansk, two Russian-occupied cities in southern Ukraine.
During the week, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that the country’s troops had managed to advance 1.5 kilometers in a sector of the battlefront near Lyman in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province.
- Uncertainty on grain deal
The agreement on the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea expires at midnight on Monday Istanbul time (18:00 BST).
Signed in July 2022 in the Turkish city, with mediation from Ankara and the UN, and extended several times since then, the agreement has allowed the export of nearly 33 million tons of grain over the past 12 months, despite the conflict.
On Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, mediator between Kiev and Moscow, said Putin “agreed” to a further extension of the deal, key to securing grain supplies around the world.
But the Kremlin did not confirm the statement.
In a telephone conversation on Saturday with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Putin said that “the obligations set out in the memorandum between Russia and the UN on the removal of obstacles to the export of Russian food and fertilizers have not yet been fulfilled,” the Kremlin said.
This is a demand repeatedly put forward by Moscow in return for exporting grain from Ukrainian ports via a safe corridor on the Black Sea.
“The main objective of the agreement, the delivery of grain to countries in need, in particular on the African continent, has not been achieved,” Putin added, according to the statement released by the Russian presidency.
Aimed at curbing inflation and food insecurity in vulnerable countries, the deal benefited 45 importing countries, with China in first place (7.75 million tons), followed by Spain (5.6 Mt) and Turkey (3.1 Mt), the Istanbul-based coordination center of the pact’s four signatories said.
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