Pro-Russian authorities in Lugansk and Kherson on Tuesday acknowledged that Ukrainian forces were trying to breach their defenses in some areas of the two regions annexed to Russia, but said they were resisting.
Lugansk (East) military spokesman Andrei Marochko told the official Russian news agency TASS that Ukrainian troops had moved as far as the city of Kreminna, where troops loyal to Moscow are trying to resist.
“The situation in the city of Kreminna is more or less calm, under control, but the enemy does not stop trying to break through our defense line,” Marochko said, according to the Spanish news agency EFE.
Marochko said Ukrainian troops suffered “huge losses”, but admitted that they are “trying to advance” nevertheless.
In Kherson (south), pro-Russian deputy head of military and civil administration Kiril Stremousov said Ukrainian troops were under fire near Dudchany.
“In the Dudchany area, the advance of the Nazis [forças ucranianas] practically stopped. Now aviation and artillery destroy all those who have invaded the sovereign territory of the Russian Federation,” Stremousov said on the social network Telegram.
The current Ukrainian advance in the east and south of the country follows the liberation of more than 450 villages in the northeastern region of Kharkov.
Ukrainian media reported Monday that Kiev forces had regained control of the town of Borova, located east of the Oskil River in the Kharkiv region, as part of the counter-offensive launched in early September.
According to the same newspaper, Ukrainian troops have already crossed the Oskil River and the counter-offensive “now includes the neighboring regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in Ukraine”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address to the people that “the fierce fighting continues” and that new locations have been liberated in several regions, but without specifying.
Information about the course of the war disclosed by both sides cannot be independently verified immediately.
Russia annexed Donetsk, Lugansk (Donbass), Kherson and Zaporijia on September 30 after referendums that were not recognized by Ukraine or most of the international community.
The four regions correspond to 15% of Ukraine’s territory and, according to NATO, have an area “about the size of Portugal”.
The Russian Senate today approved the ratification laws of the annexation treaties signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the pro-Russian leaders of the four regions, a day after approval in the House of Representatives (Duma).
The annexation of the four regions took place in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine, caused by the Russian invasion of the neighboring country, on February 24 this year.
Putin used an identical process to annex Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014.
Source: DN
