Zelensky: Ukraine holding two towns, Russians in new attacks

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy delivers his annual speech to lawmakers during a session of the Ukrainian Parliament, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine December 28, 2022. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS

Ukrainian forces are repelling constant attacks on the town of Bakhmut in the eastern Donbas region and holding their positions in nearby Soledar in very difficult conditions, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday.

“Bakhmut is holding on despite everything. And even though most of the town has been destroyed by Russian strikes, our soldiers are repelling constant Russian attempts to advance,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address.

“Soledar is holding on, even though there is even greater destruction and things are very difficult.”

Zelensky issued a fresh denunciation of what he said was Russia’s failure to observe a truce it had proclaimed for Orthodox Christmas by staging attacks on Ukrainian cities.

“Russians were shelling Kherson with incendiary ammunition immediately after Christmas,” he said, referring to a city in the south abandoned by Russian forces in November.

“Strikes on Kramatorsk and other cities in Donbas – on civilian targets and at the very time when Moscow was reporting a supposed ‘silence’ for its army.”

Russia said on Sunday that a missile attack on Kramatorsk, northwest of Bakhmut, had killed 600 Ukrainian soldiers, but a Reuters reporter at the scene found no obvious signs of casualties.

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