Ukrainian forces stepped up their counter-offensive over the weekend, claiming to have breached Russian defenses and liberated at least three villages in the country’s south-east.
The Ukrainian army said on Sunday it had liberated Blahodatne, Neskuchne and Makarivka, three villages in the south of the Donetsk region – marking a break in at least one layer of Russian fortifications. Ukrainian soldiers posted a video of themselves raising the national flag on a building in Blahodatne and holding the colors of their brigade in Neskuchne.
Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, said on Sunday that Makarivka, a third village in the south, had also been liberated as “our troops continue their offensive operations”.
Kyiv has long been reluctant to admit that a counter-offensive has begun. But on Saturday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that “the counter-offensive and individual defensive actions are continuing”.
“It is important to feel fully in Russia . . that they don’t have much time left,” Zelenskyy said at a news conference with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau.
The Ukrainian leader said that the goal was to liberate about 18 percent of the occupied territory in the southeastern regions, but no more details would be made public about the offensive.
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Moscow did not immediately comment on the claims.
On Saturday, Russia’s defense ministry said Ukraine had not yet penetrated its defense lines and claimed to have destroyed some of the advanced weapons manufactured west of Kyiv, including the Leopard tanks manufactured German, US infantry vehicles and a French howitzer.
The ministry in Moscow has published several videos in recent days claiming to show successful strikes from helicopters and drones on Ukrainian armored vehicles.
Kyiv did not acknowledge any losses.
The Russian defense ministry spokesman who made the assertions, Igor Konashenkov, has been known to make exaggerated claims, including capturing the same city multiple times — and has come under rare criticism from public from Russia’s pro-war hardliners.
On Sunday, state television showed footage of Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defense minister, awarding the Hero of Russia Gold Star medal, the country’s highest military award, to two soldiers who allegedly destroyed of many Ukrainian tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. The ministry did not say where the men were fighting or which armored units they destroyed.
Russian president Vladimir Putin on Friday said the Ukrainian counter-offensive had been going on for five days and made a rare admission that his country lacks enough modern weapons – while claiming that his military at a distance to resist the attacks.
But the defense ministry is still struggling to bring some of Russia’s own forces under its control – with a long-running dispute between Shoigu and the Wagner paramilitary group deepening on Sunday.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner’s founder, said the group would resist any efforts to make it subordinate to the defense ministry after Shoigu signed a decree requiring all patchwork volunteer battalions and irregular forces to sign contracts with the army.
Prigozhin said that Wagner will continue to respond to Putin alone because Shoigu “cannot run the military units properly”. But the paramilitary chief named another general, Sergei Surovikin, as someone he could work with.
The rare public clash has clouded one of Russia’s rare battlefield successes after Wagner and the army fought over who deserved the most credit for capturing the symbolically important city of Bakhmut last month. The former commander of an army unit in the region said this week that Wagner’s fighters tortured him, forced him to record a video confession and that they stole several armored units from Russian forces.
The intensified Ukrainian attacks came after the Kakhovka dam broke on Tuesday, causing catastrophic flooding in Ukrainian- and Russian-held territories along the Dnipro river in the southern Kherson region. The flood reduced the frontline by preventing Ukrainian forces from conducting offensive operations there.
Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu, second from left © Russian Defense Ministry Press Service/AP
Maliar, the Ukrainian deputy defense minister, said on Sunday that Russia had redeployed “the most combat-capable units” from the Kherson region to other frontline areas.
Kyiv has accused Russian sabotage groups of blowing up the dam – something Moscow denies.
Nearly 3,000 people have been evacuated from towns under Ukrainian control, with officials saying the water began to recede on Sunday. The destruction was worse in the Russian-occupied east bank, where evacuations started late and with insufficient resources.
Ihor Klymenko, Ukraine’s interior minister, said on Sunday that flooding had killed at least five people in Ukrainian-controlled territory and at least an estimated 14 more casualties in Russian-occupied parts of Kherson region. Another 35 people are missing, including seven children, Klymenko said.
The governor of the Ukrainian Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, said three civilians were killed and 10 people were injured on Sunday, including two law enforcement officers, after Russian forces opened fire on a rescue boat. which evacuates people from Russian-occupied areas.
