Putin’s forces pushed back around Bakhmut as Ukraine’s troops press on with counteroffensive

Talk of battlefield successses by Kyiv officials comes as Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency officially claims responsibility for attack on Crimea bridge last year

Ukrainian troops near Bakhmut earlier this month (AP)

Ukrainian troops are appear to be creeping closer to the eastern city of Bakhmut, the scene for some of the fiercest fighting of the war – and the military is about to receive a consignment of 1,700 strike and reconnaissance drones to help with its counteroffensive.

Hanna Maliar, the deputy defence minister, said Kyiv's troops were successfully attacking in the east on the flanks of occupied Bakhmut and also reported advances towards the southern, occupied cities of Melitopol and Berdyansk which is on the Sea of Azov

Russia, which sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, holds swathes of territory in the south and east.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based thinktank that monitors the war, described the claimed Ukrainian gains around Bakhmut as “tactically significant".

The announcement came as Ukraine's domestic intelligence agency claimed responsibility for the first time for a sabotage operation that badly damaged the Russian-made Kerch Bridge linking occupied Crimea with Russia last October.

Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), said his agency was behind the attack, speaking in comments shown on television as he presented a commemorative postage stamp marking wartime special forces operations.

"There were many different operations, special operations. We'll be able to speak about some of them publicly and aloud after the victory, we will not talk at all about others," Mr Malyuk said. "It is one of our actions, namely the destruction of the Crimean bridge on 8 October last year."

The bridge was badly damaged in a powerful blast, with Russian officials saying the explosion was caused by a truck that blew up while crossing the bridge, killing three people. The 12-mile (19 kilometre) Crimean Bridge over the Kerch Strait is the only direct link between the transport network of Russia and the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed from Ukraine and occupied in 2014.

The bridge was a flagship project for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who opened it for road traffic with great fanfare by driving a truck across in 2018. It has become a key supply line for Moscow’s troops in Ukraine.

The bridge was hit by a fresh attack this month, but Mr Malyuk made no mention of who was behind that one. Russia has blamed Ukraine.

On the ground, Ms Maliar reported Ukrainian "successes" in the southeast, including near Staromayorske, a village near a cluster of hamlets that Ukraine recaptured in the Donetsk region this summer.

"Battles continue near Staromayorske, our defenders have successes, they were gaining a foothold on the reached frontiers," she said.

In the east, Ms Maliar said Ukrainian forces continued to repel Russian advances in the direction of Kupiansk and Lyman, which Ukraine liberated last year.

Fierce fighting raged, she said, near the villages of Klishchiivka, Kurdyumivka and Andriivka on the southern flank of Bakhmut, a small city reduced to ruins in a bloody, months-long battle that gave Russian forces control of the area for now.

Despite steady Western military aid, Ukrainian military officials have said Russia still has an advantage in artillery, tanks and manpower.

Mykhailo Fedorov, a deputy prime minister, said 1,700 drones were on their way to the front lines to help the offensive.

"All of them are now going to the front to protect the lives of our soldiers, to make our artillery even more accurate, to destroy the enemy," Mr Fedorov said in a video that showed hundreds of drones laid out in rows on a field.

Mr Fedorov said that Ukrainian producers have sharply increased domestic drone production and more than 10,000 drone operators have been already trained with another 10,000 currently receiving training. The Ukrainian government also plans to invest 40bn hryvnia (£840m) this year into domestic drone manufacturing, the prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has announced.

On Tuesday, The US Department of Defense announced $400 million (£310m) in additional security assistance for Ukraine, including air defense missiles, armored vehicles and small drones.

The new aid package will include for the first time the US-furnished small Black Hornet surveillance drones. The Norwegian-built Hornet is being used in Ukraine through donations by the British and Norwegian governments,

Reuters