Washington denies the failure of the Ukrainian counterattack, and Russia announces the progress of its forces on the eastern front

 On Tuesday, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley presented an assessment of the Ukrainian counterattack, while the Russian army announced its progress on the eastern front after massing huge forces.

Austin said in a joint press conference with Milley after the meeting of the special group on Ukraine at the headquarters of the Department of Defense (Pentagon) in Washington that Kyiv is making progress in its counterattack and that Moscow's losses are increasing.

US minister added that Russian President Vladimir Putin thought he would take control of Kyiv within days, but he failed to do so, stressing that his country will do everything in its power to provide Ukraine with air defense systems and ammunition.

For his part, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said that the Ukrainians are progressing continuously and well in the battles, stressing that Kyiv has a large fighting force that has not participated to date in the battles.

He pointed out that it was too early to say that the Ukrainian counterattack had failed so far, repeating statements he made two weeks ago in which he said that the war would be long and bloody.

Milley added that the training provided by Washington to the Ukrainian army helped in the formation of leaders and units that have an impact on the battlefield, and described the Russian war on Ukraine as a major attack on the global international system.

In the context, two US officials said that the United States will announce in the coming days a new pledge to purchase military aid worth $1.3 billion for Ukraine to help it in its war with Russia.

Since the fourth of last June, the Ukrainian army has launched a counterattack in the provinces of Donetsk (east) and Zaporizhia (southeast) and has so far achieved only limited gains, as it has recovered only 210 square kilometers in the two regions, according to Hana Malyar, Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine.

However, Kyiv says that the main attack has not yet begun and that its forces are deliberately advancing slowly and destroying supply routes and Russian command centers, while Moscow asserts that the Ukrainian attack failed.

On the ground, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that its forces advanced about two kilometers during attacks launched near Kobyansk - an important railway junction - in Kharkiv (northeast) on the border with Donetsk Province in eastern Ukraine.

Russian media said that the Russian forces took control of the town of "Novo-Silovskoye" in the Kobyansk-Baharkiv axis, penetrating the defenses of the Ukrainian army in the region.

The commander of the Ukrainian ground forces, General Oleksandr Sersky, said earlier today that Russia has concentrated its forces in the Kobyansk region, describing the situation on the eastern front as complex but under control.

For his part, the spokesman for the Eastern Operations Command of the Ukrainian forces, Sergei Chervaty, said today that Russia has mobilized more than 100,000 soldiers and 900 tanks in the Liman axis of Donetsk and Kobyansk-Baharkiv.

British newspaper The Telegraph said that the massive mobilization of forces in this region is a Russian tactic aimed at dispersing the Ukrainian counterattack that began on the fourth of last June and is facing difficulties due to the strong fortifications that the Russians have built during the past months in the regions of Donetsk (east) and Zaporizhia (southeast).

Simultaneously, the Russian military website, Ribar, reported that fierce battles took place north and south of the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk Province, indicating that Russian forces had repelled Ukrainian attacks in the Zaporizhia axis.

Meanwhile, Russia launched massive retaliatory strikes early on the port of Odesa and other sites in southern Ukraine in response to the targeting of the bridge that connects it to the Crimean peninsula. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that its forces launched precise strikes with high-precision weapons on Ukrainian facilities for manufacturing drone boats in the Odesa region.

And the Russian Ministry of Defense added that the missile strikes destroyed fuel stores with a capacity of about 70,000 tons in Mykolaiv and Odesa provinces.

Moscow had accused Kyiv of attacking the Crimean Bridge with two rigged drone boats, and the Russian Ministry of Defense later announced that it had thwarted a new Ukrainian attack attempt, which it described as a terrorist, using about 30 drones on targets in the Crimea peninsula, which Russia annexed to it in 2014.

On the other hand, the Ukrainian army announced that its defenses shot down 6 "Caliber" missiles and 21 Iranian-made "Shahed-136" drones in the Odesa region and 4 others in the northern Mykolaiv region.

The governor of Mykolaiv confirmed that industrial structures in the city had been hit by the Russian bombing, while the spokeswoman for the Southern Military Command in the Ukrainian army, Natalia Hominyuk, said that the Russian attacks with drones and missiles had failed to disrupt the operation of the port of Odesa.

Ukraine did not officially claim the attack on the Crimean Bridge, but media reports attributed to Ukrainian sources that the attack was planned by the Ukrainian security services.

It is noteworthy that the Crimean Bridge - which is 18 kilometers long - was attacked yesterday, the second in 9 months, after a section of it was detonated with a truck bomb last October.

Source: Agencies