Kyiv announced on Sunday that Ukrainian forces have retaken three villages in the war-torn country’s southeast, the first reported gains of the counteroffensive.
A Ukrainian military spokesman said in televised remarks on Sunday that the army have retaken three villages located on the border of the eastern region of Donetsk and the southern region of Zaporizhzhia where Moscow has reported heavy Ukrainian assaults over the past week. He said Ukraine’s forces captured several Russian and pro-Russian troops.
After months of building expectations, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that a counteroffensive against Russian forces was underway but refused to provide any details.
Big Ukrainian military successes in the Zaporizhzhia region could potentially enable its forces to break through the land bridge that connects Russia with the Crimean Peninsula it annexed from Ukraine. This would be a major reversal for Moscow.
Ukraine has largely been silent on the offensive, but Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said Kyiv’s fightback had already begun but was already failing.
Washington-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War said Saturday that Kyiv’s forces conducted counteroffensive operations in at least four front-line areas.
Kyiv reported the first gain of the long-awaited offensive as ten people were killed and another received injuries as Russia shelled a rescue boat evacuating people after a devastating flood in southern Ukraine. Prosecutors called the flood the “worst environmental catastrophe since Chernobyl.”
Western fighting vehicles destroyed
Ukrainian troops whose US-made Bradley armored vehicles were damaged or destroyed in an assault on Russian positions last week vowed Sunday that they would soon resume the fight.
A group of Bradley fighting vehicles backed by German-made Leopard tanks came under fire on Thursday, as Ukraine’s 47th Brigade launched an offensive southeast of Zaporizhzhia, part of a fresh bid to claw back some territory from Russia. Drone footage of the ambush, shared on Russian propaganda channels, showed several vehicles hit.
A group of Ukrainian soldiers taking a break from the fighting just outside the small town of Orikhiv, in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia, told AFP they had lost most of their Bradleys.
Of nine vehicles attached to the group’s mechanized infantry unit, not the only one involved in the battle, six were wrecked, three damaged but reparable, and one was unscathed.
The group said Russian forces had been forewarned, having taunted the Ukrainians the night before the battle over their radios, and they suspected someone had leaked information.
Asked whether they had captured any ground despite coming under such heavy fire, one of the soldiers held up his finger and thumb in a gesture to indicate very small progress. “When our Bradleys are repaired, we’ll be right back at them,” another said.
No casualty figure has been released, but AFP was told that the number was less than some initially feared, as the vehicles had provided protection even after being disabled.
“Who would be happy receiving those orders, ‘Go and take those Russian positions which are well protected’?” a senior officer, who asked not to be identified, said. “But we still have that fury, we’ve no choice but to succeed.”
The 47th Brigade is one of the newly-formed units created ahead of the counteroffensive, equipped with Western-supplied equipment.
Georges Haddad, with AFP
