Russia has taken 12 settlements in Ukraine as part of general advances, top general says

MOSCOW, March 16 (Reuters) – Russia took control of 12 settlements in Ukraine in the first two weeks of March as part of advances on the front line in eastern and southern Ukraine, top general Valery Gerasimov said on Monday, quoted by Russian state news agencies.

In Kiev, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the country’s armed forces thwarted Russia’s offensive plans because Moscow was unable to reinforce its troops.

Speaking during his visit to the southern group of forces, Russian General Staff Chief Gerasimov noted the gains made around major Ukrainian cities in the more than four-year-old conflict, known in Russia as a special military operation.

According to the Russian Ministry of Defense on its Telegram channel, “The attack is being carried out in all directions.”

“In two weeks in March, 12 settlements were liberated by units and military formations of the United Group troops.”

Gerasimov said Russian forces were “actively advancing towards Sloviansk,” a heavily defended town in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region that has long been seen as one of Moscow’s main targets.

He said Kostiantynivka, another town long subject to Russian pressure, was now 60 percent in Russian hands and that Ukrainian forces were “taking all possible measures to stop our advance.”

“There are street fighting in Kostiantynivka, in the northwestern area,” Gerasimov was quoted as saying, adding that assault troops were advancing towards the city.

Russian forces were also advancing further south in the Zaporizhzhia region, “actively advancing westward” and also continuing to establish buffer zones in the border regions of Kharkiv and Sumy.

Speaking in a video speech at night after meeting with Ukraine’s top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi, Zelenskiy said that the intensity of Russian attacks has decreased.

“Ukrainian defense forces disrupted Russia’s strategic offensive operation planned by the enemy for March,” he said.

“Although the attacks have been constant and continue, their intensity and the extent of the conflict are not what Russia planned and what its command promised Russia’s political leadership.”

Zelenskiy and Syrskyi noted the successes of recapturing approximately 400 square meters of land in the Zaporizhia region in recent weeks. km. (154 square miles) of land and eight settlements.

Russia’s top military authorities have repeatedly said their forces are making steady gains along the entire front line.

Ukrainian DeepState military blog, which relied on open sources to determine the position of both sides, said Russian forces attempted an advance at Kostiantynivka and made some gains around Sloviansk.

The territorial issue remains a key sticking point in slow-moving negotiations aimed at finding a solution to the conflict. Zelenskiy stated that Russia pressured Ukraine to hand over the entire Donbas (consisting of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions), including the regions that its forces could not capture, but Zelenskiy rejected this demand.

(Reporting by ReutersWriting: Maxim Rodionov and Ron Popeski; Editing by David Gregorio)