Ukraine announced this Sunday that its troops managed to recapture three towns in the Donetsk region.in the east of the country, in what seems to be the first advances of its offensive against the Russian army.
The soldiers of the 68 brigade announced the liberation of the town of Blahodatne, on the southern front in Donetsk, near the Zaporizhia administrative border, after broadcasting a video showing fighters holding a Ukrainian flag in a destroyed building.
According to Valeriy Shershen, a spokesman for the so-called Tavria Front that participated in the operation, the Ukrainians captured two Russian soldiers and pro-Russian separatist fighters. “The Ukrainian flag has been hung over Blagodatne,” he added, referring to the town which had less than a thousand inhabitants before the war.
Shortly after, the 7th battalion of a division of the Territorial Defense Forces announced the recapture of Neskuchnein the same province and less than 20 kilometers from neighboring Zaporizhia, 80 percent occupied by Russian troops and one of the main centers of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
“Neskuchne, from the Donetsk region, is once again under the Ukrainian flag,” the state border guard service declared on Sunday, along with a video of Ukrainian troops chanting glory to Ukraine! and death to the enemies!
(Read also: The strategies with which Ukraine could recover territory conquered by Russia)
⚡️Ukrainian military reports liberating Blahodatne village in Donetsk Oblast.
Ukraine’s Armed Forces’ 68th separate brigade reported liberating Blahodatne and posted a video showing the Ukrainian flag being raised in the village. pic.twitter.com/hhp3yxNDI5
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) June 11, 2023
Ukrainian troops also recaptured another town a little further to the northwest, Makarivka, according to Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Malyar.
This is the first progress announced in several months by the Ukrainians, Discounting the report that they managed to advance a little more than 100 meters on the outskirts of Bakhmut, a town in the east that concentrated the fighting and that Moscow claims to have taken in May.
Furthermore, these are the first advances in kyiv’s offensive against Russia. For a week now, Moscow has been reporting particularly heavy fighting on the southern front. But the Ukrainian government remains silent about its strategy and refuses to confirm whether its latest military actions are part of the counteroffensive that its army has been preparing for months to recover territory from Moscow.
(You can read: Who benefits from a dam failure that Ukraine and Russia blame each other for?)
Neskuchne, Donetsk Oblast, north of Blahodatne, has just been liberated by members of the 126 Territorials 🇺🇦🏡 pic.twitter.com/G7h2wccAS0
—Galileo 🇪🇸 (@GalileoArms) June 11, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that the great Ukrainian counter-offensive has already begun. Putin, however, assured that the Ukrainian army did not achieve “its objective” and that it suffered significant losses, but warned that kyiv continues to have “offensive potential.”
For weeks, kyiv has multiplied surprise actions to condition the battlefield: drones in Moscow, attacks on Russian soil, reconnaissance operations to test the enemy’s defenses… And it is that
Ukraine has a lot at stake, and the authorities know that they will not have many opportunities to repel the Russians and retake the occupied territories in the south and east of the country.
Although Kiev maintains operational silence on the scope and pace of its offensive actions, it is known from Russian war reports that the heaviest fighting is currently taking place in the Zaporizhia region around Orikhiv and Lobkove.
President Volodimir Zelenski thanked this Sunday for the work of his troops after the reconquests. “I am grateful to our soldiers for this day. Thank you for each step, for each battle, for each destroyed occupant, ”he said in his daily address.
Evacuations continue in Kherson
Meanwhile, in southern Ukraine, evacuation operations continued due to flooding caused by for the destruction of the Kajovka dam on June 6.
Ukraine accuses Russia of detonating explosives in this dam on the Dnieper River, but Moscow claims it was kyiv that fired artillery at the structure. According to a new balance sheet from the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, six people died from the floods and 35 are still missing, including seven children, in the territories controlled by kyiv.
In the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, Moscow-appointed authorities reported eight dead and 13 missing this week.
In Kherson, which is the largest city located near the Kakhovka dam and is the regional capital, the water began to recede in some neighborhoods, despite the rain, and evacuations continued in other urban areas, AFP journalists reported.
(Keep reading: Has the long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive started? Here’s what kyiv and Moscow say)
The first residents who returned to their homes were able to verify the magnitude of the years.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin and representatives of the International Criminal Court (ICC) visited the flooded territories in the Kherson region, his office reported.
“This is the worst environmental catastrophe since Chernobyl so we are investigating it not only as a war crime but also as ecocide,” Kostin said in a statement, referring to the 1986 nuclear power plant accident.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With AFP and EFE
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