The US military said Monday that Russia had largely lost territory it seized near Kharkiv and that Russian soldiers were retreating across the border. Ukraine earlier accused the Russian military of attacking civilian infrastructure in response to a rapid weekend offensive by Ukrainian troops.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday that it was still early days in Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces, but Ukrainian forces have made “significant progress.”
Four bodies of civilians with “signs of torture” have been found in a village retaken from Russian forces in a key eastern region, Ukrainian authorities said on Monday. Additionally, one Russian strike has caused major disruption to water and power supplies in Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv.
“The Ukrainian interpretation is that this is Russian revenge for this extraordinarily successful counterattack that the Ukrainians have managed to stage in Kharkiv region” says FRANCE 24’s Gulliver Cragg reporting from Kyiv.
Russia has largely ceded its gains near Kharkiv and many retreating Russian soldiers have exited Ukraine, moving over the border back into Russia, a senior US military official said on Monday.
“On the ground in the vicinity of Kharkiv we assess that Russian forces have largely ceded their gains to the Ukrainians and have withdrawn to the north and east. Many of these forces have moved over the border into Russia,” the US military official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Overall we assess the Ukrainians are making progress as they fight to liberate and reclaim territory in the south and east,” the official said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said late on Monday that Ukraine had retaken 6,000 square kilometres of territory from Russia this month alone.
Ukrainian forces said earlier in the day that their lightning counter-offensive took back 20 settlements in the past 24 hours, as Russia responded with strikes on some of the recaptured areas.
The territorial shifts marked one of Russia’s biggest reversals since its troops were turned back from Kyiv in the earliest days of the nearly seven months of fighting, yet Moscow signalled it was no closer to agreeing a negotiated peace.
The retreat of Russian troops in recent days has drawn weeping and relieved locals into bomb-cratered streets, including on Sunday in the strategic but heavily damaged town of Izyum. – AFP.
