Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Wednesday that kyiv forces have taken control of three new villages from the Russian army in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine, where Moscow troops are fighting.
“Novovoskresenske, Novogrygorivka and Petropavlivka in the Kherson region have been liberated in the last 24 hours,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video posted on social media, assuring that the Ukrainian counter-offensive “continues”.
Advances in Lugansk Oblast
Earlier in the day, the Ukrainian governor of the Lugansk region, hitherto under almost total control of Moscow, proclaimed a breakthrough.
“Now it is official. The (reconquest) of the Lugansk region has begun. Several towns have already been liberated,” Sergiï Gaïdaï said, without further details.
Almost the entire Kharkiv region (northeast) now seems to be under Ukrainian control, paving the way for Lugansk, a bastion of the separatists installed by Moscow since 2014. The Russian army, for its part, assured this Wednesday that it had led, in the last 24 hours, “massive attacks” near Lyman (Donetsk region), a city recently taken by the Ukrainian forces, causing heavy losses to them.
In the Kherson region, Moscow’s troops “hold their positions, repelling attacks by numerically superior enemy forces,” it added. Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, assured that the lost territories would be “recovered”.
Retreats recognized by Moscow
Vladimir Putin had sworn to him to defend the annexed areas, even if it meant using nuclear weapons, a threat that stopped neither the Ukrainian counteroffensive nor Western arms deliveries.
The Russian military made half-acknowledged withdrawals on Tuesday, releasing maps showing that Moscow had ceded an entire part of the northern Kherson region and that its presence in Kharkiv was now minimal.
Source: BFM TV
