MOSCOW, March 16. /TASS/. Russian troops are steadily advancing in Maryinka, west of Donetsk, grinding down enemy forces, although the Ukrainian army continues to send in reinforcements, Acting Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Denis Pushilin said on Thursday.
"The enemy is doing everything possible to buy time. For about six weeks, we have seen fierce fighting there. However, we can also see that our troops are advancing, grinding down an enormous number of enemy troops even as they are continuously replenished with reinforcements," he told the Rossiya-24 TV channel.
Pushilin explained earlier that the Ukrainian armed forces had been actively building heavy-duty defenses in Maryinka for eight years. The Donetsk leader noted that the remaining Ukrainian troops had entrenched themselves in residential areas on the outskirts of the city, while all high-rise buildings were controlled by Russian forces. DPR officials noted that the liberation of Maryinka would put several municipal districts of Donetsk (Alexandrovka, and the Petrovsky and Tekstilshchik districts) safely beyond the reach of Ukrainian shelling attacks.