During the day, Russian forces fired rocket launchers into the eastern part of Kharkiv, Derhazy and Progyanka, among other areas. They launched an offensive operation near Izjum, but were unsuccessful, suffered losses and retreated. Earlier, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense reported that Russian forces were trying to occupy two settlements about 20 kilometers from Izgum, artillery and air strikes on the Kharkiv district headquarters. There were no reports of injuries.
In the Donetsk Basin, fighting again extended along the front line between the Ukrainian and the separatist territories, with Russian forces firing Ukrainian positions with minesweepers and cannons. Attempts to break through the Ukrainian defense line near Kurahov, about 50 kilometers west of Donetsk, were unsuccessful.
Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kirilenko claimed in the Telegram messaging app that the Russians used phosphorous-containing projectiles at Avigyijivka. An air strike was also directed at the city in the morning, wounding at least one civilian. According to the governor, the city has been shot twice with phosphorous bombs, first around the local coke plant Tuesday night and then on Wednesday in the city center. Disasters caused fires in several places in the settlement.
According to information from the Kyiv General Staff
In the occupied parts of Zaporizhia Oblast in eastern Ukraine, Russian soldiers search the homes of local residents to identify members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and recruit local residents.
It is forbidden to walk on the street in the occupied area without an identity document.
Russian forces are preparing for the so-called referendum, printing ballot papers and verifying personal data of local residents in the occupied territories of southern Ukraine. Russian forces continue to prevent civilians from leaving the occupied territories.
Ukraine’s state railways company said another Russian missile attack destroyed a road and a railway bridge over the mouth of the Dniester River in southern Ukraine’s Odessa region, preventing suburban trains from running to Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi.
Serhiy Volynsky, commander of the 36th Ukrainian Marine Brigade defending Mariupol on the shores of the Sea of Azov in a video message on Wednesday
He requested the rescue of the city’s defenders, similar to the 1940 operation at Dunkirk.
In 1940, Nazi Germans surrounded French and British soldiers near Dunkirk. The Allied forces were threatened with disaster, but the German command ordered them to stop the offensive and not to approach Dunkirk at a distance of more than 10 kilometers. The Ukrainian news portal Pravda reported that more than 300,000 French and British soldiers were evacuated during the rescue operation.
“We have been fighting under a complete siege for sixty-two days, and now we are at the Azov steel mill with units of the Azov regiment and other formations. There is no staff to help them, they also harm civilians, we help them as much as possible, there are hundreds of civilians, dozens of children and many disabled people. And the elderly are with us. The garrison of Mariupol. The measure of withdrawal is applied to us. It is not 1940, it is 2022. People die here.. Wounded die and others die in battle.. Civilians die here with us in shelters, private homes and high-rise buildings where they were simply shot dead ” . He added that Mariupol’s defenders are hoping for help.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Kharkiv, Ihor Terehov, promised in Telegram that he would propose at the first council meeting after Ukraine’s victory to change all public domain names referring to Russia.
