By Jon Gambrell, KYIV Ukraine
Ukrainian forces scored more gains in their counteroffensive across at least two fronts Monday, advancing in the very areas that Russia is trying to absorb and challenging Moscow’s effort to engage fresh troops and its threats to defend incorporated areas by all means.
In their latest breakthrough,
Ukrainian forces penetrated Moscow’s defenses in the strategic southern Kherson
region, one of the four areas in Ukraine that Russia is in the process of
annexing.
Kyiv’s troops also consolidated
gains in the east and other major battlefields, re-establishing Ukrainian
control just as Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to overcome problems
with manpower, weapons, troop morale and logistics, along with intensifying
domestic and international criticism. Putin faces disarray and anger
domestically about his partial troop mobilization and confusion about the
establishment of new Russian borders.
Ukraine’s advances have become
so apparent that even Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov, who
usually focuses on his military’s successes and the enemy’s losses, was forced
to acknowledge it.
“With numerically superior
tank units in the direction of Zolota Balka and Oleksandrivka, the enemy
managed to forge deep into our defenses,” Konashenkov said Monday, referring to
two towns in the Kherson region. He coupled that with claims that Russian
forces inflicted heavy losses on Ukraine’s military.
Ukrainian forces have
struggled to retake the Kherson region due to its open terrain, in contrast to
their successful breakout offensive in the northeast around the country’s
second-largest city of Kharkiv that began last month.
Ukraine has pressed its
counteroffensive in the Kherson region since the summer, relentlessly pummeling
Russian supply lines and making inroads into Russian-held areas west of the
Dnieper River. The Ukrainian military has used U.S.-supplied HIMARS multiple
rocket launchers to repeatedly hit the main bridge across the Dnieper and a dam
that served as a second crossing. It also has struck pontoon bridges that
Russia has used to supply its troops.
As the front lines shifted, the political theater in Moscow continued, with Russia’s lower house of parliament rubber-stamping annexation treaties for Ukraine’s Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions to join Russia. The upper house will follow suit Tuesday. This follows annexation “referendums” that the Kremlin orchestrated last week that the U.N. chief and Western nations have said were illegal and fraudulent.
Russia’s moves to incorporate
the Ukrainian regions, as well as Putin’s effort to mobilize more troops, have
been done so hastily that government officials have struggled to explain and
implement them. On Monday, the issue was basic: Exactly what areas of Ukraine
is Russia trying to incorporate?
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry
Peskov said Donetsk and Luhansk are joining Russia with the same administrative
borders that existed before a conflict erupted there in 2014 between
pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces. But he added that the borders
Zaporizhzhia and Kherson are still undecided.
“We will continue to discuss
that with residents of those regions,” Peskov said.
A senior Russian lawmaker
offered a different view. Pavel Krasheninnikov said Zaporizhzhia will be
absorbed within its “administrative borders,” meaning Moscow plans to
incorporate parts of the region still under Kyiv’s control. He said similar
logic will apply to Kherson, but that Russia will include two districts of the
neighboring Mykolaiv region that are now occupied by Russia.
In addition to the Kherson
areas that Russia’s Defense Ministry cited, other sources showed Ukrainian
flags, soldiers deployed or other signs that Kyiv’s forces had retaken the
villages of Arkhanhelske, Myroliubivka, Khreshchenivka, Mykhalivka and Novovorontsovka.
There was no immediate confirmation from Kyiv on the gains.
The situation in the regional
capital, also called Kherson, was so precarious that Russian authorities are
restricting people from leaving, Ukraine’s presidential office said.
A Russian-installed official
in the Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, acknowledged that the Ukrainian
forces “have broken through a little deeper” but insisted that “everything is
under control” and that Russia’s “defense system is working.”
Still, Russia claimed some
success at pushing back. The Moscow-appointed chief of the Kherson region,
Vladimir Saldo, said Ukrainian troops tried to advance toward Dudchany along
the Dnieper’s western bank, seeking to reach a key dam at Nova Kakhovka, but
that Russian warplanes destroyed two Ukrainian battalions and halted the
offensive. Saldo also said Russian forces fended off Ukraine’s attempted
inroads into the Kherson region from Mykolaiv and Kryvyi Rih.
Neither Saldo’s nor
Stremousov’s claims could be independently verified.
Ukraine reported advances in
other areas Russia is annexing. The Ukrainian governor of the Luhansk region,
Serhiy Haidai, said Kyiv’s forces retook the village of Torske, 20 kilometers
(12 miles) from the city of Kreminna. Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov
said the area is “key for controlling the entire Luhansk region, because
further beyond (the city) the Russians don’t have any more lines of defenses.”
“Retaking this city opens up
operational space for Ukrainians to rapidly advance to the very state border
with Russia,” Zhdanov told The Associated Press.
He said Russian troops had
retreated from the Kharkiv region. Ukraine’s army reportedly liberated most of
Borova in the Kharkiv region across the Oskil River, 50 kilometers (31 miles)
north of the city of Lyman. Officials posted a video while driving along
recaptured streets, waving the Ukrainian flag.
“Finally, you are home.
Finally, it’s Ukraine. Glory to Ukraine!” an onlooker yelled.
Elsewhere in the Kharkiv
region, a doctor was killed and nurse wounded in a Russian missile attack on a
hospital in Kupiansk that caused major damage, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov reported.
Last week, at least 24 civilians were killed in an attack on a convoy trying to
flee Kupiansk.
Ukraine also has retaken
Lyman, a strategic eastern city that the Russians had used as a key logistics
and transport hub. Lyman is in the Donetsk region near the border with Luhansk.
Ukraine’s push to recapture
territory has embarrassed the Kremlin and prompted rare domestic criticism of
Putin’s war. Tens of thousands of Russian men have fled Russia since the Sept.
21 call-up. Many
flew to Turkey, one of the few countries maintaining air links with
Russia. Others have left in cars, creating long traffic jams at the Russian
borders with Georgia, Kazakhstan and Finland.
The International Atomic
Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, said Monday that director general
of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant — Europe’s largest — had
been released from Russian custody. Russian forces had blindfolded and detained
Ihor Murashov on Friday for questioning.
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