The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Valery Zaluzhny, said Tuesday that his forces had withdrawn towards “the outskirts” of Marinka, a town in the east of the country whose capture Moscow claimed the day before.
“The fact that we have moved to the outskirts of Marinka and in some places we have already exceeded the boundaries of the locality, should not cause public outcry,” Zaluzhny said at a conference of press.
According to him, Ukrainian soldiers are still in the northern part of the city, but his forces have “prepared a defense line outside this locality” to which to retreat.
Marinka “no longer exists” in view of the destruction, he said.
Russia claimed Monday to have taken control of this town located five kilometers southwest of Donetsk, the main town under Russian occupation in the region.
Marinka had been transformed by the Ukrainian army into a stronghold since 2014 and the start of a conflict with pro-Russian separatists led by Moscow, who had seized the city of Donetsk in particular.
Vladimir Putin on Monday welcomed the capture of Marinka which, according to him, kept Ukrainian artillery away from Donetsk and allowed Moscow’s forces to “have a wider operational space” in the area.
Valery Zalouzhny estimated Tuesday that Russia had “today the strength to concentrate its efforts to destroy a city like Bakhmut in three months”, in reference to the longest and deadliest battle of the war.
Russia captured the town of Bakhmut, also in the east, last May at the cost of enormous destruction. For months it has been besieging another stronghold in Donbass, Avdiïvka, in the hope of encircling it.
“I fully understand that our fighters are doing a very difficult job in extremely difficult conditions,” Zaluzhny added.