The main tasks of the first stage of Russia's &special military operation& in Ukraine have been completed in general and the combat potential of the Ukrainian armed forces has been significantly reduced, the Russian Ministry of Defense said Friday.The Russian military will &concentrate on the main thing — the complete liberation of Donbass,& said Sergei Rudskoy, first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, at a news briefing in Moscow.The Ukrainian air forces and air defense systems have been almost completely destroyed and its naval forces have ceased to exist.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army has no organized reserves left, Rudskoy told the media.The Ukrainian cities of Kiev, Kharkov, Chernihiv, Sumy and Nikolaev are blocked by Russian troops, while Kherson and most of the Zaporozhye region are under Russia's full control, Rudskoy said.Armed forces in Donbass now control 93 percent of Luhansk region and 54 percent of the Donetsk region, he said.Since the start of the military operation a month ago, more than 14,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed and about 16,000 others wounded.
As for the Russian side, 1,351 servicemen have been killed and 3,825 others injured, said Rudskoy.The Russian Ministry of Defense also said that since March 4, Russia has opened a number of humanitarian corridors, with nearly 420,000 civilians having been evacuated from Ukraine and the Donbass region to Russia.
Russia has conducted 617 humanitarian operations in Donbass, Kiev and other places and offered 5,043 tons of emergency relief supplies to the civilians there.The post Russia announces completion of 1st stage of military operation in Ukraine first appeared on Ariana News.