KYIV: Kyiv reported “heated” fighting around its eastern city of Avdiivka Saturday, saying Russian forces had “not stopped assaulting” the symbolic industrial hub for days in their attempt to surround it.
Ukraine last week said Russia had stepped up assaults on the frontline city, which lies just 15 kilometers (nine miles) from Moscow-held Donetsk.
Avdiivka has been a symbol of Ukrainian resistance since 2014, after it briefly fell to Russian-backed separatists.
Russian forces now control territory to the east, north and south of Avdiivka.
“For the fifth day already, the enemy has not stopped either assaulting or shelling positions around the city,” Vitaliy Barabash, the head of the city, said on Ukrainian television.
“It is very heated, very heated,” he said of the fighting.
“They are trying to surround the city,” Barabash added, claiming that Moscow was deploying “more new forces” to the area.
He described intense battles: “There is certainly no silence there at all. Shooting battles continue, both from the north and from the south of the city.”
Kyiv’s interior ministry said Russian shelling had “destroyed” a five-story building in the city, saying it believed a man in his sixties was under the rubble but that it was “impossible to retrieve the body.”
It urged residents still in Avdiivka to evacuate.
Some 1,600 civilians are believed to be in the city, which had a pre-war population of 31,000.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Kyiv was holding its ground in Avdiivka, but Moscow claimed it had improved its positions there.
Ukraine also said Saturday that a Russian attack killed an 11-year-old boy in the eastern village of Bagatyr, also in the Donetsk region, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Avdiivka.
“The boy turned 11 just two days ago,” Ukrainian police said in a statement.
It said his 31-year-old mother and younger brother were wounded and taken to hospital following the attack, which damaged around 20 homes, a church and a school.
Russia’s intensified assault on Avdiivka has come after months of a Ukrainian counter-offensive, which has been slower than expected.
Russia meanwhile said it had “repelled enemy attacks” in several villages in eastern Ukraine, including in Andriivka — an eastern village that Kyiv has claimed it recaptured but Russia says it controls.
‘Heated’ fighting in Avdiivka as Russia tries to ‘surround’ city: official
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‘Heated’ fighting in Avdiivka as Russia tries to ‘surround’ city: official
- Avdiivka has been a symbol of Ukrainian resistance since 2014, after it briefly fell to Russian-backed separatists
- “For the fifth day already, the enemy has not stopped either assaulting or shelling positions around the city,” Vitaliy Barabash, the head of the city, said on Ukrainian television
Indonesia reaffirms Yemen’s territorial integrity, backs stability efforts amid tensions
- Statement comes after Saudi Arabia bombed a UAE weapons shipment at Yemeni port city
- Jakarta last week said it ‘appreciates’ Riyadh ‘working together’ with Yemen to restore stability
JAKARTA: Indonesia has called for respect for Yemen’s territorial integrity and commended efforts to maintain stability in the region, a day after Saudi Arabia bombed a weapons shipment from the UAE at a Yemeni port city that Riyadh said was intended for separatist forces.
Saudi Arabia carried out a “limited airstrike” at Yemen’s port city of Al-Mukalla in the southern province of Hadramout on Tuesday, following the arrival of an Emirati shipment that came amid heightened tensions linked to advances by the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council in the war-torn country.
In a statement issued late on Wednesday, the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it “appreciates further efforts by concerned parties to maintain stability and security,” particularly in the provinces of Hadramout and Al-Mahara.
“Indonesia reaffirms the importance of peaceful settlement through an inclusive and comprehensive political dialogue under the coordination of the United Nations and respecting Yemen’s legitimate government and territorial integrity,” Indonesia’s foreign affairs ministry said.
The latest statement comes after Jakarta said last week that it “appreciates the efforts of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as other relevant countries, working together with Yemeni stakeholders to de-escalate tensions and restore stability.”
Saudi Arabia leads the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen, which includes the UAE and was established in 2015 to combat the Houthi rebels, who control most of northern Yemen.
Riyadh has been calling on the STC, which initially supported Yemen’s internationally recognized government against the Houthi rebels, to withdraw after it launched an offensive against the Saudi-backed government troops last month, seeking an independent state in the south.
Indonesia has also urged for “all parties to exercise restraint and avoid unilateral action that could impact security conditions,” and has previously said that the rising tensions in Yemen could “further deteriorate the security situation and exacerbate the suffering” of the Yemeni people.
Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country, maintains close ties with both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are its main trade and investment partners in the Middle East.
