- Russia appears to be facing one of its worst defeats in nearly seven months of war
- Ukrainian troops are consolidating control over a large swathe of northeastern territory
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Ukraine said on Tuesday it aimed to liberate all of its territory after driving back Russian forces in the northeast of country in a rapid offensive, but called on the West to speed up deliveries of weapons systems to back the advance.
Since Moscow abandoned its main bastion in northeastern Ukraine on Saturday, marking its worst defeat since the early days of the war, Ukrainian troops have recaptured dozens of towns in a stunning shift in battleground momentum.
Fighting was still raging in the northeastern Kharkiv region, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar said on Tuesday, saying Ukraine’s forces were making good progress because they are highly motivated and their operation is well planned.
“The aim is to liberate the Kharkiv region and beyond – all the territories occupied by the Russian Federation,” she said on the road to Balakliia, a crucial military supply hub recaptured by Ukrainian forces late last week which lies 74km (46 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.
In a video address late on Monday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said the West must speed up deliveries of weapons systems, calling on Ukraine’s allies to “strengthen cooperation to defeat Russian terror”.Since Russia’s February 24 invasion, Washington and its allies have provided Ukraine with billions of dollars in weapons that Kyiv says have helped limit Moscow’s gains. Russian forces control around a fifth of the country in the south and east but Ukraine is now on the offensive in both areas.
Power outages
There were renewed electricity outages in the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and surrounding areas, where Kyiv’s forces are rapidly pushing back Russian troops.
The Governor of Kharkiv province, Oleh Synyehubov, said on Telegram that “the enemy shelled Losova at around three o’clock in the morning and there was a direct hit in an educational institution.”
He shared images showing the complete destruction of a school building in the small town around 150 kilometres south of Kharkiv city.
The authorities said the power outages were due to Russian shelling that damaged a reserve supply line.
While the city of Kharkiv was not directly hit, it knocked out power to some areas. The outage meant Kharkiv’s metro had to be shut down. Electricians were said to be heading to the area to fix the problem.
Kyiv has characterised such attacks on utilities as revenge for its recent successes to retake territory.
Meanwhile, images of a downed drone allegedly of Iranian origin were shared online, but the information could not be independently verified.The authorities said three civilians have died and eight people were injured in the region in the last 24 hours. Russian forces also targeted the city of Kupyansk in the east of the Kharkiv region, retaken by Ukrainians in their counteroffensive.
The Ukrainian army has recaptured more than 6,000 square kilometres of land from Russian occupying forces since the beginning of September, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Our troops remain on the move,” he said in Kyiv in comments on Monday evening. He called for anti-aircraft weapons to be supplied more quickly from abroad, given the Russian missile attacks on the power grid.
Ukrainian troops expanded their territorial gains, pushing all the way to the country’s northeastern border in places, and claimed to have captured a record number of Russian soldiers as part of the lightning advance that forced Moscow to make a hasty retreat.
A spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence said Russian troops were surrendering en masse as “they understand the hopelessness of their situation”. A Ukrainian presidential adviser said there were so many prisoners of war that the country was running out of space to accommodate them.The counteroffensive left the Kremlin struggling for a response to its largest military defeat in Ukraine since Russian forces pulled back from areas near Kyiv after a botched attempt to capture the capital early in the invasion.
The Russian Defence Ministry acknowledged the setback in a map that showed its troops pressed back along a narrow patch of land on the border with Russia – a tacit admission of big Ukrainian gains.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov sidestepped a reporter’s question of whether Putin still had confidence in the military leadership.
Russia has continuously stopped short of calling its invasion a war, instead describing it as a “special military operation” and relying on a limited contingent of volunteers instead of a mass mobilisation that could spur civil discontent and protest.
Some in Russia blamed Western weapons and fighters for the losses.“It’s not Ukraine that attacked Izium, but Nato,” read a headline in the state-supported Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, referring to one of the areas where Russia said it has withdrawn troops.
Nuclear plant concerns
Shelling around the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has sparked grave concerns about the risk of radioactive catastrophe. The UN atomic watchdog has proposed the creation of a protection zone around the nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, and both sides are interested, IAEA chief said.
“We are playing with fire,” Rafael Grossi told reporters. “We cannot continue in a situation where we are one step away from a nuclear accident. The safety of the Zaporizhzhia power plant is hanging by a thread.”
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