An adviser to the Ukrainian president said that the Russian army has made some progress in the Donbass region (eastern Ukraine), while a member of the Russian Negotiations Committee with Ukraine stated that Moscow is considering exchanging the prisoners of the Azovstal complex with a Ukrainian businessman close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Timofey Milovanov, adviser to the Ukrainian president, admitted, in a statement to Al-Jazeera today, Saturday, that the Russian forces advanced a little in Donbass in an attempt to impose their full control over the region, and Milovanov added that the war in Ukraine had reached a stalemate because both sides were fighting to the limit.
An adviser to the Ukrainian president stressed that Kyiv needs multi-range missile launchers to halt the Russian advance.
Lugansk and Donetsk
Today, Saturday, the governor of Lugansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, said that Russia is trying to destroy the city of Severodonetsk in light of the fighting in the outskirts of the city, one of the largest cities of the Lugansk region. .
Severodonetsk and its twin city of Lysichansk, across the Seversky Donets River, form the eastern part of a Ukrainian-controlled enclave that Russia has been trying to bypass since mid-April after it failed to control Kyiv.
In the Donetsk region, adjacent to the Lugansk region (they make up the Donbass region), Donetsk governor Pavlo Kirilenko said that 7 civilians were killed and 10 wounded today, Saturday in his region, and the Ukrainian police stated on their Facebook account that they evacuated about 60 people, including children, from a church that was bombed in a village. Bogorodichny in the Donetsk region.
Russia and its separatist forces control most of the Donetsk region, and seek to complete control over the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk, where the separatists declared republics in 2014.
Russia recognized the two separatist republics days before the start of its war against its neighbor Ukraine on February 24.
Russian novel
The Russian army said that its forces were advancing in the Donbass region, and the Russian Defense Ministry indicated on Friday that the completion of control over the Lugansk region was nearing completion.
Leonid Soltsky, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Russian State Duma (parliament) and a member of the Russian Negotiations Committee with Ukraine, said that the Donbass region will witness important events in the next few months, as he put it.
"Residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics will express their decision, as happened previously in Crimea and Sevastopol, and as they wish to live in the future," Soltsky added during his visit to the Donetsk region.
Azovstal prisoners
On the other hand, Soltsky said that Moscow is considering the possibility of exchanging prisoners of the Ukrainian Azov Brigade fighters for Ukrainian businessman Viktor Medvechuk, who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Victor, 67, is a Ukrainian politician and businessman known for his closeness to Putin, and was arrested by the Ukrainian authorities in mid-April, after he fled since the start of the Russian attack.
He has been under house arrest since May 2021 after being accused of "high treason" and "attempting to plunder the natural resources of Crimea", the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.
Leonid Solitsky's statement came a day after the Russian army announced on Friday that the last Ukrainian defenders of the city of Mariupol (southeast of Ukraine) who were holed up in the sprawling Azovstal complex, including fighters in the Azov nationalist battalion, which the Kremlin considers to be "neo-Nazis".
Western weapons
Earlier today, the Russian Defense Ministry said that the Russian army had destroyed Western arms shipments using long-range and high-precision "Kaliber" missiles, a large shipment of weapons and military equipment sent by the United States and European countries near the Malin railway station in the Zhytomyr region, west of the Ukrainian capital (Kyiv). .
On the other hand, Ukrainian media said that the southern Ukrainian operational command reported that Russia had lost at least 36 soldiers, 3 T-72 tanks and a Grad missile launcher during the battles that took place along the southern front lines in the past 24 hours. A number of military vehicles.