An aerial view shows Ukraine’s Motherland monument, with its new Ukrainian coat of arms shield, after fresh snowfall on Nov. 22, 2023, in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Kostya Liberov | Libkos | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Russian forces continued to shell Ukraine’s eastern city of Avdiivka on Thursday night while four were killed in the southern Kherson region, according to local officials.
Since mid-October, Russia has been trying to encircle and capture the town of Avdiivka, home to a massive coking plant and close to the Russian-held regional hub of Donetsk.
The head of Avdiivka’s military administration, Vitaliy Barabash, told Ukraine’s Channel 24 on Thursday that Russian forces had launched their “savage” attack on the defeated. According to Reuters, Barabash said that Russia is launching up to 18 air attacks per day, sometimes more.
In the southern Kherson region, prosecutors said the Russian attack killed three men and a woman, according to Reuters, as Ukrainian forces continued to carry out a counteroffensive in the east and south of the country.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comments on Wednesday — in which he blamed Ukraine for the lack of peace talks and said Russia was ready for talks to resume — were designed to pile pressure on the West to push Ukraine back to the negotiating table. , analysts said.
They noted that Putin and other Russian officials regularly claim that the Kremlin is willing to negotiate to end the war while signaling that the Kremlin maintains its main goals, including territorial claims and regime change in Ukraine.
