Dnipropetrovsk, Aug 8: Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield express little hope for a diplomatic solution to the war with Russia, as US President Donald Trump’s deadline for the Kremlin to stop killing arrived and he eyed a possible summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the conflict. Trump’s efforts to pressure Putin have delivered no progress, as Russia’s bigger army is slowly advancing deeper into Ukraine at great cost in troops and armour while relentlessly bombarding Ukrainian cities. Russia and Ukraine are far apart on their terms for peace.
Ukrainian forces are locked in intense battles along the 1,000-kilometer front line that snakes from northeast to southeast Ukraine. The Pokrovsk city area of the eastern Donetsk region is taking the brunt of punishment as Russia looks to break out from there into the neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk region. Ukraine has significant manpower shortages. Intense fighting is also taking place in Ukraine’s northern Sumy border region, where Ukrainian forces are engaging Russian soldiers to prevent reinforcements being sent from there to Donetsk.
In the Pokrovsk area, a commander said he believes Moscow is not interested in peace and that the only option is to defeat them. In the southern Zaporizhzhia region, a howitzer commander using the call sign Warsaw, said troops are determined to thwart Russia’s invasion. Trump said Thursday that he would meet with Putin even if the Russian leader will not meet with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said that Putin remains uninterested in ending his war and is attempting to extract bilateral concessions from the United States without meaningfully engaging in a peace process. (AP)
