Kyiv, Ukraine –
Ukrainian forces in the northeastern Kharkiv region have retaken parts of Russian-held territory there as a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south has depleted some of Moscow’s resources in the area, according to a report released Wednesday.
Ukrainian forces in the Kharkiv region are “likely exploiting the redeployment of Russian forces” to areas near the occupied city of Kherson in the south “to carry out an opportunistic but highly effective counteroffensive” in the province, according to the Institute for the Washington-based Study of the War. said.
Ukrainian forces likely used “tactical surprise” to advance at least 20 kilometers (12 miles) into Russian-held territory in the Kharkiv region on Wednesday, retaking about 400 square kilometers (155 square miles) of ground, according to the report.
Vitaly Ganchev, the Moscow-backed mayor of the city of Kupiansk in a Russian-occupied area of the Kharkiv region, said on Thursday that authorities had begun evacuating women and children from the city and nearby areas due to relentless Ukrainian shelling. .
In his late-night video address on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also reported on the success in the Kharkiv region, but did not provide details on its scope.
“This week we have good news from the Kharkiv region. You have probably already seen reports about the activity of Ukrainian defenders, and I think that all citizens are proud of our warriors,” Zelenskyy said.
The gains came as Ukraine continued to mount a counteroffensive in the southern Kherson region, where the Ukrainian military is trying to recapture territory from the Russians and has claimed an unspecified number of towns.
Ukraine’s ongoing operations near Kherson have forced Russian forces to shift their focus south, according to the Institute for the Study of War report, allowing Ukrainian forces to launch localized but highly effective counterattacks near Kherson. Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy’s presidential adviser, Oleksiy Arestovych, also spoke of Ukrainian gains near Kharkiv on Wednesday night, saying they would help disrupt supplies to Russian forces in the area and potentially lead to their encirclement.
Meanwhile, tensions continued to simmer around Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, with Ukraine and Russia accusing each other of threatening nuclear disaster by bombing near the facility.
The cities of Nikopol and Marhanets, which face the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on the other side of the Dnieper River, suffered overnight Russian shelling that damaged apartment buildings, a school, some industrial facilities and power lines, Valentyn Reznichenko said. , governor of Dnepropetrovsk. Province.
“The nuclear threat is not diminishing due to Russia’s crazy actions and we must consider all possible scenarios, including the worst,” Reznichenko said in televised remarks.
The head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, warned that “something very, very catastrophic could happen” at the Zaporizhzhia plant and urged Russia and Ukraine to establish a “security protection zone nuclear” around that.
The fear is that the clashes could trigger a disaster on the scale of the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk urged residents of Russian-occupied areas near the power plant to evacuate, adding that Ukrainian authorities urged the Russians to establish humanitarian corridors to evacuate local residents, but did not they received a response.
“The Russians continue to blackmail the Ukrainians and the whole world,” Vereshchuk said. “The Russian state engages in nuclear terrorism, setting the first such precedent in human history.”
The Ukrainian company Enerhoatom, which oversees the country’s nuclear plants, said workers at the Zaporizhzhia plant were continuing repair work on Thursday to restore at least one of the plant’s seven power lines, which continued to operate with only one of the six reactors operating to feed cooling. system pumps.
Enerhoatom chief Petro Kotin said IAEA proposals to improve security at the plant can only be implemented if Russian troops leave and are replaced by a peacekeeping contingent.
IN OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:
- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed on Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s complaint that most of the grain from Ukraine’s reopened ports went to richer parts of the world. Putin said this week that virtually all grain exported from Ukraine under a deal brokered by Ankara and the United Nations that lifted Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports had gone to European Union nations rather than poorer countries. Speaking in Zagreb, Croatia, on the last day of his three-day Balkan tour, Erdogan said Turkey wants the grain “to be delivered to really poor countries” and urged that food and fertilizer shipments from Russia begin soon. .
- Norway said Thursday that it will donate approximately 160 Hellfire missiles to Ukraine, as well as launch pads and guidance units. During a meeting in Germany, Norwegian Defense Minister Bj├╕rn Arild Gram said his country would also supply Ukraine with night vision equipment, adding that Kyiv had requested the weapons.
- The head of the Ukrainian army, General Valerii Zaluzhnyy, acknowledged in an article published on Wednesday that the explosions and fires at air bases in the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula last month were caused by a “successful series of attacks with Rockets at Crimean Air Bases”. He marked the first official acknowledgment of responsibility for the attacks by the Ukrainian authorities. Zaluzhnyy did not give details of the attacks.
- — Ukraine’s presidential office said at least 10 people were killed and 15 others wounded by Russian shelling in the past 24 hours.