Pushed back in the Black Sea: Ukraine reports successes against Russian fleet

According to Ukraine's Defense Ministry, Russia's Black Sea fleet will be pushed more than 100 kilometers offshore.

Pushed back in the Black Sea: Ukraine reports successes against Russian fleet

According to Ukraine's Defense Ministry, Russia's Black Sea fleet will be pushed more than 100 kilometers offshore. Accordingly, the Russians are moving their defense systems to other areas. Meanwhile, the situation in the city of Sievjerodonetsk remains difficult.

According to the Ukrainian army, it has managed to push back the Russian fleet more than 100 kilometers from the country's Black Sea coast. The Russian fleet has been "deprived of total control over the north-west of the Black Sea," the Defense Ministry in Kyiv said via Telegram.

However, Russia is trying to regain control of the sea area, and the cities on the coast are still threatened by Russian missile attacks. In addition, the Russian fleet continues to block civilian shipping, the ministry said. In response to Ukraine's successes in the Black Sea, Russian forces should have deployed coastal defense systems to the Crimean peninsula and the Russian-held area around the city of Kherson.

In addition, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, additional Russian forces were stationed on Russian-occupied Snake Island. The information could not initially be verified independently. Russian Navy warships have been maintaining a naval blockade off Ukraine for weeks.

In the battle for the strategically important city of Sievjerodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, however, the situation of the Ukrainian forces appears to be increasingly difficult. "We are holding out, but they are more and they are stronger," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told journalists in Kyiv, referring to the Russian troops. Selenskyj described Sieverodonetsk as well as neighboring Lysychansk as "today dead cities". According to him, between 10,000 and 15,000 civilians are still in Sievjerodonetsk amid Russian artillery fire.

For his part, the Ukrainian regional governor, Serhiy Gaiday, said that the situation for the Ukrainian army in Sieverodonetsk had "deteriorated" again after recent successes. Sievjerodonetsk is the last major city in the Luhansk region in the Donbass that has not yet been conquered by Russia.