KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s military reported Sunday that it had captured a southeastern village as Russian forces claimed to have repelled several attacks in the area, while a regional officials say three people were killed when Moscow troops fired on a boat evacuating people from Russia-occupied areas to Ukrainian-held territory along the flooded which front line is far to the south.
Fighting on battlefields in the southeast and chaotic scenes from flooded southern Ukraine mark the latest chaos and bloodshed in Russia’s war on Ukraine, now in its 16th month.
Oleksandr Prokudin, governor of the Kherson region, said in his Telegram account that a 74-year-old man who tried to protect a woman was among those killed in the attack by the evacuees, who injured 10 others. An Associated Press team at the site saw three ambulances drop injured evacuees at a hospital, one of whom was covered in blood and taken on a stretcher to the emergency room.
The Kherson region straddles the Dnieper River and has suffered severe flooding since last week’s breach of a dam that Ukraine and Russia accuse each other of causing. Russian forces occupy parts of the region east of the river.
Many civilians said Russian authorities in the occupied territories forced would-be evacuees to show Russian passports before taking them to safety. Since then, dozens of small boats have been traveling from Ukrainian-held areas on the west bank across the river to rescue desperate civilians trapped on rooftops, in attics and other dry islands amid the floods.
In the northeast, about halfway up the more than 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, Ukrainian forces said they had driven Russian fighters from the village of Blahodatne, partially occupied by Donetsk region. Ukraine’s 68th Separate Hunting Brigade posted a video on Facebook showing soldiers installing a Ukrainian flag on a destroyed building in the village.
Myroslav Semeniuk, spokesman for the brigade, told The Associated Press that an assault team captured six Russian troops after entering several buildings where about 60 soldiers were hiding. “The enemy continues to attack us but it cannot stop us,” Semeniuk said. “The next village we plan to recapture is Urozhayne. After that, (we will move) south.
Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Ukrainian troops in the area advanced up to 1.5 kilometers (about a mile) and took control of another village, Makarivka.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday that counteroffensive actions in Ukraine are continuing. But while the recapture of Blahodatne points to a small Ukrainian advance, Western and Ukrainian leaders have repeatedly warned that efforts to oust Russian troops more broadly are expected to take time. Russia does most of how its troops stay in place elsewhere.
The Russian Defense Ministry on Sunday continued to insist that it rejected Ukrainian attacks in the area. It said in a statement that Ukrainian attempts at offensive operations in the southern Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia frontline axes over the past 24 hours were “unsuccessful.”
Vladimir Rogov, an official installed by Russia in the Zaporizhzhia region, insisted that Blahodatne and two other villages in the region are in a “grey area” over who controls them. However, Rogov said in a Telegram post that Russian fighters were forced to leave the village of Neskuchne in the Donetsk region. In a video, fighters who identified themselves as members of a Ukrainian volunteer force claimed to have captured the village.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the counteroffensive in Ukraine had begun, and said that Ukrainian forces had taken “heavy losses.”
In other developments:
Ukrhydroenergo, Ukraine’s hydropower generator, said Sunday that the water level in a reservoir above the breached Kakhovka dam continued to drop — to 9.35 meters (30 feet, 6 inches) on Sunday morning, noting in a drop of more than seven meters from the dam burst on Sunday. Tuesday.
On the other hand, below the dam, Prokudin said that the water level in the Ukrainian-held west bank has decreased, although more than 32 settlements remain flooded. He said conditions were worse on the Russian-occupied east bank, which sits at a lower elevation and where water levels are slowly falling.
Also on Sunday, the Russian military accused Ukrainian forces of attacking – albeit unsuccessfully – one of its ships in the Black Sea.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the attempted attack occurred when six unmanned speedboats targeted the Russian Priazovye reconnaissance vessel that “monitors the situation and ensures the security of the TurkStream and Blue Stream routes.” gas pipeline in the southeastern part of the Black Sea.”
All the speedboats were destroyed by the Russian military, and the ship did not sustain any damage, the ministry said. The claim could not be independently verified, and Ukrainian officials did not immediately comment.
Ukraine and Russia reportedly exchanged several prisoners of war on Sunday; Russia said 94 of its soldiers had been released and Yermak said 95 Ukrainians had been released.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu signed a decree ordering all Russian volunteer formations to sign contracts with the ministry by July 1, according to his deputy Nikolai Pankov. The move will give formations legal status and allow them to receive the same state benefits as contract soldiers.
Observers said the move was likely aimed at Wagner’s private military company. Wagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has a long-standing feud with the Russian military, said Sunday that the group would not sign such contracts “because Shoigu cannot manage military formations normally. “
