Ukraine’s Zelensky extends his tour of front-line areas as a spring offensive looms
OKHTYRKA, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the Sumy region in the north Tuesday, continuing his tour over recent days of areas of the country that have felt the brunt of Russia’s full-scale invasion and as the stage increasingly looks set for a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Zelensky met with officials and local people in two cities in the region, which borders Russia. It was partially occupied by Russian forces after the war started more than a year ago. The Russians withdrew from the region by early April.
The Ukrainian president visited the Sumy region cities of Okhtyrka, which saw fierce battles last year but was never occupied, and Trostianets, which was held by the Russians for a month after the invasion but liberated by Ukrainian forces March 26, 2022.
Zelensky’s trip followed his visits over the last seven days to the Kherson and Kharkiv regions, parts of which were retaken last year from the Kremlin’s forces; to the intensely contested area near Bakhmut, in the eastern Donetsk region; and to Zaporizhzhia in the south.
Also Tuesday, at least three civilians were killed and 43 others were wounded by the latest Russian attacks involving drones, gliding bombs and heavy artillery, Zelensky’s office said.
In the Donetsk region, Russian shelling hit 12 towns and villages, killing two and wounding 34. The Russian attacks also targeted the southern city of Kherson, where five people were wounded. In Bilopillia in the Sumy region, a Russian strike damaged a school building and an apartment building.
A new drive is underway across Russia this spring seeking volunteers to join the military and replenish Moscow’s troops for the war in Ukraine.
Addressing a crowd of people on a square in Okhtyrka, Zelensky promised that the battle-scarred city would be rebuilt.
“We won’t let any wound remain on the body of our state,” he said.
In Trostianets, Zelensky honored soldiers at the local railway station, where Ukrainian authorities say the Russians tortured prisoners. He also met with Ukraine’s minister for reconstruction, Oleksandr Kubrakov.
Many buildings in the city are damaged or destroyed by the war, with crumbling walls and punctured roofs.
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Trostianets resident Dmytro Zaiats told the Associated Press that the president’s visit to the city meant a lot to him.
“It’s a symbol of unity and the iron will that brought the country together,” he said.
Expectations of a Ukrainian push against Russian positions are mounting as the weather improves and Western-supplied weapons for Kyiv arrive.
Germany said late Monday that it has delivered the 18 Leopard 2 tanks it had promised Ukraine. Poland, Canada, Portugal and Norway have also delivered promised tanks. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Twitter that the first British Challenger 2 battle tanks had arrived, too.
“These fantastic machines will soon begin their combat missions,” Reznikov said.
Russia is stepping up its own production of materiel. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited factories in the Chelyabinsk and Kirov regions producing artillery rounds and rockets, Russia’s Defense Ministry said, adding that the plants would increase the output of certain items by seven or eight times later this year.
Slovakia says the first four of 13 Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets that it decided to give Ukraine have been safely handed over to Kyiv’s air force.
Russia has kept up its long-range bombardment of Ukraine areas, but its nighttime attacks with Iranian-made Shahed exploding drones are causing little damage.
The Ukrainian military downed 14 of the 15 Shahed drones that Russia fired late Monday, the General Staff of the Ukrainian military said.
The Kyiv regional military administration said that wreckage from a downed drone hit an administrative building in the Sviatoshynskyi District in the western part of the capital, causing a fire. There were no casualties.
The Dnipropetrovsk regional governor, Serhii Lysak, said that the Ukrainian military shot down two drones overnight, but another one hit a privately owned industrial facility in the city of Dnipro and caused a fire that took hours to extinguish.
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