Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine (OPU), is convinced that Russian troops will not attack Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv in the near future. He stated this at a briefing in Kyiv on Thursday, March 17, DW correspondent reports.

According to him, during the last day there have been no significant changes in the positions of the Russian troops and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Arestovych noted that Russian troops are trying to advance “along the Kherson-Mykolayiv line” and are trying to surround Ukrainian troops in the area of ​​the Joint Forces Operation in Donbas from Izyum in Kharkiv region and “cut off Mariupol.”

Transition to positional battles

According to the adviser to the head of the OPU, in the area of ​​Kyiv , Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Sumy, Russian troops are fighting positional battles with Ukrainian troops. “The enemy has moved to the defense areas and is taking some tactical steps to improve its position,” he added. Arestovich is convinced that “there is no question of any offensive in these areas.” “Without a significant supply of reserves, which have nowhere to go, promotion to Kyiv, Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Sumy is impossible,” he said.

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However, as Arestovich noted, the Russian army is resorting to violence against the local population in the settlements around the Ukrainian capital. “Violence against the local population is systematically observed in the cities around Kyiv. If in the past such cases were isolated, now the situation has worsened. The Russian army is deliberately destroying the Ukrainian population. This is genocide. There are hundreds, not even dozens, “he said.

Destruction of the command post

At the same time, Arestovych said that the Ukrainian troops had destroyed the command post of one of the Russian armies the day before. “This is a great achievement. It probably means the destruction of several generals and, consequently, the pause and disorganization of the enemy’s hostilities,” he suggested.

Read the chronicle of the war in Ukraine on March 17

According to the adviser to the head of the OPU, “the enemy, realizing that he can not win either in the air or on the ground, uses (“) the destruction of civilian objects and terror of civilians. “

He also said that the enemy was “significantly depleted”, adding that Russia had used 97 battalion tactical groups in Ukraine. “Of these, 15 have been completely destroyed, 18 are incapacitated, and 10 remain that they can still overthrow,” he said.