Robotyne is considered by Ukrainians as a symbol of resistance against Russia.
The Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, went to Robotyne, a village in the south that symbolizes resistance for the Ukrainians.
He said: “It is an honor to be here”. He met with the soldiers who are protecting the place in the Zaporizhzhia region, which was taken back from the Russians last summer in a successful counterattack.
In August of last year, Kyivv took back Robotyne in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia, in what it saw as a big victory of the counterattack against the Russians.
Since then, Robotyne has been constantly under attack by the Russian troops and is one of the main hotspots of the southern front. “The Zaporizhzhia region. Robotyne. The location of the 65th Mechanized Brigade. I talked to the protectors, thanked them and gave them state awards,” Zelensky said on social media. “It is an honor to be here today.”
A video posted on Facebook showed the president in uniform talking to the soldiers in a dark room that looked like an underground bunker.
The 65th brigade led the attack on the village last year. Even though the taking back of Robotyne was praised as a victory of Kyiv’s counterattack, Ukraine’s effort to recover the land lost to Moscow has slowed down since then.
On another front, the Ukrainian Navy said today that, since the start of the Russian invasion, the activities of the Russian Black Sea fleet have been “very difficult or even stopped”.
The Navy spokesman, Captain Dmytro Pletenchuk, said on Sunday to the public television that, of about 80 Russian ships deployed at the start of the invasion in the Black Sea, about 25 have been destroyed and 15 are in repair.
Of the original 80, between 30 and 35 are “big warships that have a real threat with their wide range of reach”, he said. However, the frequent Ukrainian attacks against Russian targets in the Black Sea, especially against the main base of the Moscow Fleet in Sevastopol, in the annexed peninsula of Crimea, have been lowering the naval abilities of Russia.
“The Black Sea Fleet has been (in poor condition) for a long time: apart from the missile ships with (cruise-type) Kalibr missiles, they have nothing that they can use against Ukraine,” Pletenchuk said and added that even the activity of these last ones is limited by the high risk that it means for them to dock in Sevastopol.
In this sense, the Ukrainian Navy reported this morning through its social networks that at 8:00 a.m. local time (06:00 GMT) a single enemy ship was in the Black Sea, along with another ship in the Sea of Azov.
The Navy added that two enemy vessels were in the Mediterranean Sea at that time, one of them a missile ship loaded with eight Kalibr-type projectiles.
