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Thursday, February 6, 2025

Russia makes gains in eastern Ukraine, carries out lethal airstrikes

On Sunday, Russia announced that its forces had made progress in eastern Ukraine, while Kyiv reported deadly air strikes and called on the West to permit more retaliatory attacks inside Russia.

Russian attack drones heading toward Ukraine also breached the airspace of NATO members Romania and Latvia, prompting calls for a strong response from the alliance.

Moscow has intensified its aerial assaults in recent weeks, while simultaneously attempting to repel a significant Ukrainian cross-border offensive in the western Kursk region, which has shifted the dynamics of the two-and-a-half-year war.

Kyiv launched its offensive in Kursk on August 6, aiming to force Russia to redeploy troops advancing in the east. However, Moscow has increased its attacks in the region, securing its most substantial territorial gains in almost two years throughout August.

On Sunday, Russia’s military claimed to have captured another small village on the path to the critical logistics hub of Pokrovsk in eastern Donetsk. The Russian defense ministry announced that its forces had “liberated the settlement of Novohrodivka,” located roughly 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Pokrovsk.

This town is one of the larger conquests in recent weeks for Russia, which launched its full-scale offensive in February 2022, and had a population of over 14,000 before the war.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that his primary objective in Ukraine, after 30 months of conflict, was to capture the eastern Donbas region, which includes Donetsk. He claimed that Ukraine’s counteroffensive in Kursk had made that goal more achievable.

Moscow faced renewed criticism on Sunday after its drones were detected in Latvia and Romania, both NATO and EU member states. Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics confirmed that “a Russian military drone… crashed in eastern Latvia yesterday. An investigation is ongoing,” via X (formerly Twitter). Romania also reported that a Russian drone, targeting civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, had entered its airspace overnight.

Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, called for NATO to respond, stating, “NATO must act against Russian ‘Shaheds’ freely flying in European airspace. They must be shot down.” He was referring to Iranian-made self-detonating drones.

Zelensky himself urged Ukraine’s Western allies to allow Kyiv greater latitude in using supplied weapons against Russian targets. “In just one week, Russia has used over 800 guided aerial bombs, nearly 300 Shahed drones, and more than 60 missiles against our people,” Zelensky said in a Facebook post. He emphasized that the only way to reliably stop the terror was by targeting Russian military airfields, bases, and logistical infrastructure.

On Sunday, seven people were reported killed across Ukraine due to Russian rocket, missile, and shelling attacks.

In the city of Sumy, two people were killed in an airstrike. Sumy is the capital of the region where Ukraine launched its surprise counterattack, sending troops and tanks across the border into Russia. “Four more people were injured, including two children,” Sumy military officials said.

Four additional people were killed in separate Russian rocket and missile strikes in the Donetsk frontline region on Saturday night and Sunday morning, according to local officials.

Shelling in the northeastern Kharkiv region left one person dead and 10 wounded, according to the regional governor.

In the central city of Poltava, officials reported that the death toll from a strike on a military education facility last week had risen to 58 after three more people succumbed to their injuries.

Russian strikes last week also claimed seven lives in the western city of Lviv, a rare and deadly attack on a city far from the frontlines and near Ukraine’s border with the EU and NATO.

For months, Kyiv has been urging the West to provide longer-range missiles and to lift restrictions on their use.

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