Ukraine says counteroffensive has liberated 5 villages in southeast

4 of the villages — Neskuchne, Storozheve, Blahodatne and Makarivka — are positioned south of Velyka Novosilka, one of many counteroffensive’s key beginning factors, near the border of the Zaporizhzhia area. The villages are clustered on a roughly 5½-mile stretch of street main south into occupied territory closely fortified by Russia.

The fifth city, Novodarivka, is positioned simply over the road in Zaporizhzhia.

The cities are about 80 miles north of the long-occupied metropolis of Mariupol, which was almost destroyed by heavy Russian bombing final 12 months.

Ukraine on Monday made no point out of the losses incurred as a part of the advance. And the deal with such a small stretch of territory underscored the tough nature of the counteroffensive and the chance that good points, if any, can be measured in minute increments.

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On Sunday, the Ukrainian Volunteer Military posted a video through which its members posed with their battalion colours within the village of Neskuchne. The Washington Publish couldn’t independently confirm the video, or others purporting to indicate the liberations.

Ukraine’s thirty fifth Separate Marine Brigade posted a video on Monday reportedly displaying its forces elevating the Ukrainian flag and marching by way of the village of Storozheve, and the 68th Separate Jaeger Brigade confirmed footage from the village of Blahodatne.

“The operation started at about 5 a.m.,” a soldier, recognized solely by his name signal “Doc,” mentioned within the Storozheve video. “The enemy resisted with its artillery at first. We managed to take the initiative into our personal fingers and retake the village home by home.”

Ukrainian Deputy Protection Minister Hanna Maliar, posting on Telegram, mentioned that Ukraine’s forces even have taken the city of Makarivka, simply south of Blahodatne.

Rob Lee, senior fellow on the Overseas Coverage Analysis Institute and a army skilled, mentioned that though “the villages by themselves aren’t important,” the bulletins indicated that Ukrainian forces had been “making progress.”

“I believe it’s going about because it ought to have been anticipated,” Lee mentioned. “However it’s going to be a troublesome combat provided that they’re going into ready defensive positions and Russia’s been getting ready these traces for a number of months.”

The speed of attrition on either side might be a key issue because the marketing campaign unfolds, Lee mentioned. “That is going to be an extended offensive,” he mentioned, stating that Ukrainian forces’ offensive to take again the southern metropolis of Kherson began in August, however “they made their first substantive good points in October.”

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Russia’s Protection Ministry claimed in an announcement to have repelled assaults within the space, starting in Vremivka — the primary city alongside the street south from Velyka Novosilka.

“Decisive actions of defending models, artillery hearth and heavy firing techniques of the Vostok Group of Forces repelled three enemy assaults from the course of [Velyka Novosilka] of the Donetsk Folks’s Republic,” the Russian Protection Ministry mentioned, referring to the separatist area acknowledged by Moscow in its unlawful try to annex Ukrainian territory.

Ukrainian officers have warned that Kyiv’s forces may expertise excessive casualties as they attempt to claw again territory from Russia’s military, which has entrenched itself in closely fortified positions all through Ukraine’s south and east.

Final week, video and photographic imagery indicated that Ukraine’s army suffered important losses of apparatus — together with some Leopard battle tanks lately acquired from its Western allies.

Ukraine additionally claimed Monday to have made advances on the flanks of the destroyed japanese metropolis of Bakhmut, which lately fell to Russian management after greater than eight months of fierce and bloody preventing.

Ukrainian troops had pushed again Russian forces an extra “250 to 700 meters” in areas close to Bakhmut, in response to Serhiy Cherevaty, the spokesman for Ukraine’s japanese forces.

Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, contributed to this report.