Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy chief of intelligence, said on Saturday that Kyiv believes Russia has stationed more than 400,000 soldiers in regions of eastern and southern Ukraine that it controls.
“The Russian Federation has concentrated over 420,000 servicemen in our temporarily occupied territories, including Crimea”, Skibitsky told a press conference in Kyiv.
“Does not include the Russian National Guard and other special units that maintain occupation authorities on our territories”, he added.
Skibitsky also claimed that Russia had been actively launching assaults from Crimea, which it had occupied in 2014.
Drones deployed in Crimea are being used against our ports of Izmail and Reni, which have been exploited as alternative export hubs, particularly since the expiration of a treaty guaranteeing Black Sea shipments.
In June, Ukraine began a counteroffensive in the east and south but was met with severe resistance from entrenched Russian soldiers.
Kyiv’s forces are also dealing with renewed assaults in territories liberated last year near Kharkiv in the northeast.
(Russians) want to exact their vengeance in Kharkiv, said Deputy Defence Minister Ganna Malyar.
She claimed that Russian troops were attempting to divide Ukrainian forces in the east so that we couldn’t centralize them around Bakhmut, where we are successfully advancing.
She admitted, “The enemy is strong, and they have more people and weaponry”.
Over the last week, the Russian army fired almost 400,000 shells into Ukrainian troops on the eastern front, according to Malyar.
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