Russia has expanded and reinforced penetration into Ukrainian defense near Ocheretyne - Suspilne Donbas editor-in-chief

He spoke about this on Espreso TV.

"The Ukrainian Armed Forces' General Staff reports 98 combat clashes over the last day, 28 of which took place in the former Avdiivka direction and 21 in the Bakhmut direction. That is, these are still the two hottest areas of defense of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The third most active area is the so-called Orikhiv direction on the border of Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions, where Russians are storming our bridgehead near Robotyne and advancing on Staromayorske in the Donetsk region. In general, among the frontline areas that I am more concerned about, the frontline has expanded in the area of Ocheretyne, and the Russians are strengthening their penetration into the Ukrainian defense," noted Suspilne Donbas editor-in-chief.

According to him, the distance from the nearest point controlled by the Russian troops to the Pokrovsk-Kostiantynivka highway is about 10 km. This indicates they are close to gaining fire control over this critical highway, which serves as the lifeline for the entire group in the Donetsk region.

"Another area that is very important is that the Russians continue to storm Chasiv Yar. There are no enemy troops in the city itself, but they are gradually coming to the Siverskyi Donets-Donbas canal. Let me explain why this is so important, because Chasiv Yar has a height that dominates the area, on the one hand over Bakhmut, and on the other over the entire valley where the Kramatorsk agglomeration is located, that is, the cities of Kostiantynivka, Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. And to the north of Chasiv Yar is a ridge of uplands from which the Russian military will be able to take fire control of the entire Kramatorsk agglomeration. This city is very important for us, so the enemy is trying so hard to storm it," explained Andriy Kramchenkov.

• On May 9, British intelligence noted that the Russian occupying army has significantly increased the number of attacks in some parts of the frontline in recent months. Despite this, they did not achieve significant success last month.
• On May 10, the Ukrainian Armed Forces' General Staff reported that at least 95 clashes took place between the two armies over the past day. Ukrainian forces repelled attacks in 7 directions and eliminated 980 Russian soldiers.