Ukrainian Forces Hold the Line in Donbas as Western Heavy Weapons Join the Battle; Ukrainian forces blow up two makeshift Russian bridges in Ukraine; Videos show RU tanks being blown sky-high in UKR; Rand Paul blocks bipartisan push to pass UKR aid, LIVE UPDATES and MORE

Ukrainian Forces Hold the Line in Donbas as Western Heavy Weapons Join the Battle

The front line between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed forces has skirted this village in Donbas since the conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014.

The line moved by just a few hundred yards after Russia launched its all-out invasion on Feb. 24, a sign that Moscow is struggling to reach even its most modest war aims in Ukraine.

“We are still here, holding firm, and this by itself is a victory,” said a Ukrainian Army captain as he waited out a salvo of Russian rockets at his mortar position in Maryinka on Wednesday.

The rockets slammed into the village’s main square, enveloping it in black smoke and peppering with shrapnel the remains of the village’s golden-domed church.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the war, he described it as a “special operation to protect Donbas,” which by then he no longer recognized as part of Ukraine.

In late March, when his initial attempt to seize the capital, Kyiv, collapsed because of stiff Ukrainian resistance, Mr. Putin reformulated the campaign’s current objective as “liberating” all of the Donbas areas still controlled by the government.

More than three weeks after the massive Russian offensive that aims to encircle Ukraine’s best forces in Donbas kicked off on April 18, Moscow’s achievements so far are limited at best. In a Senate testimony this week, Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, the head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, described the current stage of the war as a stalemate —>READ MORE HERE

Ukrainian forces blow up two makeshift Russian bridges in Ukraine, drone images show:

Ukrainian forces have knocked out two makeshift bridges in eastern Ukraine, foiling Russian efforts to move troops and tanks across a river, according to Ukrainian officials.

Images released by the Ukrainian military on Wednesday show two pontoon bridges destroyed, side by side, reportedly in the Siverskyi Donets River in the Luhansk region. Two separate Ukrainian assaults, within 24 hours of each other, took out the bridges, along with several Russian military vehicles in the process, according to a report.

“The Ukrainian Armed Forces once again destroyed the [Russian] pontoon crossings across the Seversky Donets,” Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai said on Telegram Wednesday.

“Bilohorivka is now an outpost of Luhansk Oblast, where [Russians] keep trying to cross the river but end up feeding the fish,” Haidai added. —>READ MORE HERE

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