Russia seeks to establish fire control over Sloviansk’s northern outskirts – Dnipro OSGT
Russian occupying troops are continuing attempts to establish fire control over the northern outskirts of the city of Sloviansk in Donetsk region and the access routes leading to it.
This was reported by Oleksii Bielskyi, spokesperson for the Dnipro operational-strategic group of troops (OSGT), in a comment to Ukrinform, Censor.NET said.
Asked whether he could confirm that Russian forces are persisting in their attempts to secure fire control over the northern outskirts of Sloviansk and the approaches to the city, Bielskyi said:
"Yes, I can confirm that. The occupiers had and still have a task for the spring-summer campaign – figuratively speaking, we are not tied to calendars. Essentially, the summer campaign is still ongoing."
The spokesperson noted that the occupiers had previously declared their intention to seize the entire Donetsk region, including major cities such as Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad.
"And they are very eager to capture Sloviansk. All the more so since, for them, Sloviansk has been a kind of fetish since 2014," Bielskyi said.
Spokesperson added that the invaders are attempting to bypass Lyman from different directions in order to advance further toward Sloviansk.
"They could approach Sloviansk proper, coming in from the northeast from the direction of Siversk and from Lyman, where they are showing intense activity. "They tried to break through to it, without success, so they are now attempting to push from the south and from the northwest: first to take Lyman and then move directly toward Raihorodok in Donetsk, Mykolaivka, and the immediate outskirts of Sloviansk, or to come down from the north via Sviatohirsk. Another option is via Kramatorsk — that would be from the south," Bielskyi said.
At the same time, he noted that Ukrainian defenders are successfully holding off Russian offensive actions, though enemy pressure is mounting.
Commenting on reports of allegedly increased enemy FPV-drone activity on the Lyman–Raihorodok–Sloviansk axis, the spokesperson said Russian use of such drones is constant, but there has been no significant uptick.
"I wouldn’t say their (enemy use of FPVs -ed.) has been particularly active. They constantly employ standard FPVs and increasingly FPVs on fiber-optic links," Bielskyi added.
Earlier, the DeepState monitoring project reported high activity by Russian drone crews along the Sloviansk–Izium road, with about 10 pieces of equipment hit there in a single day.
