UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR Zelenskyy has said Ukrainian forces have recaptured nearly 2,500 square kilometres of territory from Russia in a counteroffensive that began late last month.
“This week alone, our soldiers liberated 776 square kilometres of territory in the east of our country and 29 settlements, including six in Lugansk region,” Zelenskyy said.
“In total, 2,434 square kilometres of our land and 96 settlements have already been liberated since the beginning of this offensive operation,” he added in his daily speech shared on social media.
Ukraine has in recent days made a second significant push to reclaim territory in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, but also in the south, near Kherson, a city under Russian control.
In mid-September, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces retook 6,000 square kilometres from Russian troops in the first counteroffensive.
Russian forces said earlier today they had captured ground in Donetsk in east Ukraine, their first claim of new gains since Kyiv grabbed the momentum with its lightning counteroffensive that rattled Russia’s war effort.
The announcement came as Russia’s Orthodox leader said President Vladimir Putin’s rule had been divined by God, congratulating him on his 70th birthday and as the Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to rights defenders in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
Separatist forces in the war-battered Donetsk region said they had reclaimed a series of villages near the Ukraine-controlled industrial town of Bakhmut, which has been under Russian shelling for weeks.
“On the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic, a grouping of troops of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics, with fire support from Russian forces, liberated Otradovka, Veselaya Dolina and Zaitsevo,” they said on social media.
The Donetsk region, which has been partially controlled by Kremlin-backed separatists for years, is a key prize for Russian troops that invaded Ukraine in February.
But Ukraine’s forces in recent weeks have been pushing back against Russian forces across the frontlines in the south and in the east, including in parts of Donetsk.
AFP journalists in the centre of Bakhmut heard the sound of heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems near the remains of a smashed bridge over the Bakhmutka river.
Zelenskyy has also pushed to punish Russia further in other areas.
Today, he urged Brussels to ramp up pressure on Russia’s energy sector, a day after the EU imposed a fresh round of sanctions on Moscow that included the expansion of import/export bans.
Plumes of black smoke
A civilian volunteer from the humanitarian group Vostok SOS, 29-year-old Edvard Skoryk told AFP that there had been “street combat” near his home on the other side.
South of the city, in the direction of the apparently seized villages, occasional columns of black smoke erupted after shells exploded.
Civilians flinched and sometimes dived for cover as projectiles whistled overhead. Occasional bursts of machine gun fire was also audible.
Ukraine’s lightning territorial gains in the east and south have undermined a claim from the Kremlin last week that it annexed Donetsk, neighbouring Luhansk and the southern regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
The four territories create a crucial land corridor between Russia and the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014 and together make up around 20% of Ukraine.
In Kherson, the Moscow-installed deputy head of the region said Friday that five civilians were killed in shelling by Kyiv’s forces, as Ukrainian forces push their counter-offensive to reclaim the area.
“Militants from the Ukrainian military fired at a bus carrying civilians on the Daryevsky bridge. Civilians were on their way to work,” he said on social media, saying another five people had been wounded.
Kyiv announced this week that it had recaptured some 500 square kilometres in Kherson.
This included around 30 towns and villages, potentially trapping as many as 20,000 Russian troops on the western bank of the Dnieper river that cuts through Kherson.
Ukraine’s Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov today urged Russian forces to lay down their arms promising their lives would be spared and they would be safe.
‘Safety and justice’
“You can still save Russia from tragedy and the Russian army from humiliation,” Reznikov said in Russian in a video addressed to Russian troops.
“We guarantee life, safety and justice for all who refuse to fight immediately. And we will ensure a tribunal for those who gave criminal orders,” he promised.
The Kremlin has not only pushed on in Donetsk, but Russian drones struck the central industrial city of Zaporizhzhia, where Europe’s largest nuclear power plant is located.
The death toll from a Russian missile attack on apartment blocks in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia rose to 11 as the city was hit again by missiles and — for the first time — by explosive-packed drones.
With its army suffering a series of battlefield defeats in recent weeks, Russia has been deploying Iranian-made drones to attack Ukrainian targets.
The unmanned, disposable “kamikaze drones” are cheaper and less sophisticated than missiles but have proved effective at causing damage to targets on the ground.
Regional Governor Oleksandr Starukh said Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones damaged two infrastructure facilities in the city of Zaporizhzhia, the first time they had been used there.
He said missiles also struck the city again, injuring one person.
The Emergency Services of Ukraine said the toll of Russian S-300 missile strikes on the city a day earlier rose to 11 and a further 21 people were rescued from the rubble of destroyed apartments.
“This was not a random hit, but a series of missiles aimed at multi-storey buildings,” Starukh wrote on his Telegram channel.
Additional reporting from the Press Association
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