Ukraine said on Sunday that its forces had regained control of three villages from Russian forces in the southeast of the country, the first settlements to announce their liberation since launching a counterattack a few days ago.
Soldiers raised the Ukrainian flag over a building damaged in previous bombing in an unverified video released by the Ukrainian 68th Brigade, which identified the village as Blahodatny in the Donetsk region.
“We see the first results of counterattack moves,” a spokesman for one of the sectors of the Ukrainian army said on television.
He added that the village is located on the outskirts of the Donetsk and Zaporizhia regions, a few kilometers south of the Kiev-controlled village of Velika Novoselka.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hana Malyar said afterwards in a statement that Kiev forces had also recaptured Makarivka, a village adjacent to the previous one, and had advanced 300 to 1,500 meters in two directions on the southern front.
A Ukrainian defense unit also posted unverified footage on Telegram of its soldiers raising the flag in Neskochny, the village closest to Ukrainian positions in the area.
Maliar added: “We have not lost control of any sites in the directions in which our forces take a defensive position.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday gave the strongest signal yet that Kiev had launched a long-awaited counter-offensive to retake territory in the east and south from Russia, stressing that “counter-offensive and defensive operations” were already underway.
For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that the Ukrainian military offensive has been underway for some time, but failed to break through the Russian defense lines and incurred heavy losses.
Kiev officials imposed a strict period of silence on the operations, urging Ukrainians not to disclose any information that could jeopardize the operation.
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2023-06-11 22:44:07
