Ukrainian forces pierced the first line of Russian fortifications in the nation’s southeast and are fighting to widen the breach, the nation’s defense chief said, in a bid for a potential breakthrough after its counteroffensive bogged down to the chagrin of Ukraine’s allies.
Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said that Ukrainian soldiers, on foot and mostly at night, had made slow progress in clearing heavily mined areas to create approach corridors for a larger force that has now fought through the first main line of Russian trenches, bunkers and tanks traps. “We broke the first line, and now we are expanding our foothold,” Reznikov told reporters Monday in Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said after meeting the chief executive officers of Ukraine’s defense industry that he is pushing for “guns made in Ukraine, projectiles made in Ukraine, drones, missiles, armored vehicles.” He said in his nightly address that “Ukraine can do it,” though without offering details.
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