Russian forces destroy Starlink station, drone center in Bakhmut

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
2 Jul 2023 09:59

This comes as Ukraine launched its counteroffensive earlier last month, and they've already failed at advancing into South Donetsk, Bakhmut and Zaporozhye.

A Ukrainian troop stands next to the antenna of the Starlink satellite-based broadband system in Bakhmut on February 9, 2023 (AFP)

A Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson confirmed to Sputnik that a Ukrainian Starlink satellite communication station and a drone control center near Bakhmut have been destroyed by Russian forces.

"... the artillery of the group [of Russian forces] destroyed a Starlink communication station, a control center for unmanned aerial vehicles together with a Leleka-100 drone, a communication center, and a pickup truck with an infantry group," the spokesperson said.

An attack by a Ukrainian assault group near Berkhivka village in Bakhmut was also repelled by Russian forces. According to a source in the command of Russia's South group of soldiers, "Airborne troops stopped the enemy in the gray zone … As a result of the battle, more than 200 Ukrainian military personnel, five tanks, eight infantry fighting vehicles, and more than 10 unmanned aerial vehicles were destroyed."

The onslaught included roughly 300 men, six tanks, and ten armored fighting vehicles.

This comes as Ukraine launched its counteroffensive earlier last month, and they've already failed at advancing into South Donetsk, Bakhmut, and Zaporozhye. This also comes especially after Wagner PMC Head Yevgeny Prigozhin staged his armed mutiny and inexplicably failed after Belarus swooped in to mediate before things got too hot.

On the evening of June 23, the Wagner Group took control of an army headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, a city in southern Russia, and marched toward Moscow the next day. Prigozhin claimed that his activities were in retaliation for the defense ministry's purported assault on his group's field camps, but the ministry denied this.

After speaking with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who was acting at the behest of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Prigozhin decided to put an end to the rebellion. Lukashenko acknowledged Prigozhin's arrival in Belarus on Tuesday.