Ukraine claims recapture of seven villages in early levels of counteroffensive

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian troops have retaken a complete of seven villages spanning 35 sq. miles from Russian forces prior to now week, Kyiv’s deputy protection minister mentioned Monday because the early levels of Kyiv’s counteroffensive notched small successes and the majority of Ukraine’s offensive power nonetheless waited to deploy for battle.

Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar wrote on the Telegram app that the Ukrainian flag was once more flying over the village of Storozhev, within the japanese Donetsk province, and that her troops had additionally retaken three different close by small villages and three in neighboring Zaporizhzhia province.

“The battles are tough, but our movement is there, and that is very important,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mentioned in his nightly video tackle. He added that wet climate is proving a problem for attacking forces.

On Sunday, Ukrainian officers mentioned their troops took the Donetsk villages of Blahodatne, Makarivka and Neskuchne — south of the city of Velyka Novosilka. Ms. Maliar reported Monday that the Zaporizhzhia province settlements of Lobkove, Levadne and Novodrivka have been additionally now again beneath Ukrainian management.

Russian officers didn’t verify Ukraine’s positive factors, which have been unimaginable to confirm and could possibly be reversed within the to-and-fro of struggle. The positive factors amounted to solely small bits of territory and underscored the problem of the battle forward for Ukrainian forces, who should struggle over troublesome, closely defended floor to regain the roughly one-fifth of their nation beneath Russian occupation.

Recent combating on the western fringe of the 600-mile entrance line has been difficult by a dam breach that despatched floodwaters into part of the Dnieper River separating the 2 sides.

Western analysts and army officers have cautioned that an effort to rid Ukraine of entrenched and powerfully armed Russian troops might take years, and the success of the Ukrainian counteroffensive is way from sure. French President Emmanuel Macron, assembly with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish President Andrzej in a present of solidarity with Kyiv, mentioned in Paris Monday that the Ukrainian counteroffensive started a number of days in the past and “is set to be deployed over several weeks, if not months.”

Vladimir Rogov, an official with the Moscow-appointed administration of the Zaporizhzhia area on the western finish of the entrance line, mentioned “heavy battles” have been raging within the space Monday involving Russian artillery, mortars and air energy.

The villages are a part of an space the place the Russian entrance strains jut out into territory held by Ukraine. While just a bit greater than 1 mile deep, the protrusion has lately turn out to be one in every of a number of epicenters of intense combating alongside the entrance line that cuts throughout southern and japanese Ukraine.

Despite their small dimension, the seize of the villages concerned an incursion into the primary line of Russian defenses and will enable Ukrainian forces to attempt a deeper thrust into occupied areas.

Russian forces management far much less Ukrainian land than they did earlier than a blistering Ukrainian counteroffensive final yr that retook the northern metropolis of Kharkiv and the southern metropolis of Kherson, amongst different locations.

On Saturday, Mr. Zelenskyy mentioned “counteroffensive, defensive actions are taking place” with out specifying whether or not it was the all-out counteroffensive that has lengthy been anticipated after an enormous infusion of Western firepower and air protection techniques into Ukraine. A day earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted that the counteroffensive had began and Ukrainian forces have been taking “significant losses.”

Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia’s legislature, the State Duma, took to Telegram on Monday to supply his “congratulations” to the nation’s troops.

“For more than a week, they, sacrificing themselves, successfully [repelled] the counteroffensive of the troops of the bloody Kyiv regime, supported by NATO. Thank you for your courage, heroism, and bravery,” Mr. Volodin wrote on the social media web site.

But Semyon Pegov, a outstanding Russian army blogger who goes by the nickname WarGonzo, acknowledged that Russian troops had withdrawn from Blahodatne, Neskuchne and Makarivka, and mentioned Ukrainian forces have been attempting to push ahead alongside the banks of the Mokri Yaly River on Monday.

Alexander Kots, army correspondent for Russian day by day Komsomolskaya Pravda, mentioned Ukrainian forces have been making an attempt to advance, regardless of heavy losses, towards the city of Staromlinovka, which sits on a strategic freeway resulting in the port metropolis of Mariupol. Russian forces captured the town over a yr in the past, after Ukrainian forces held out for a number of months in a grueling and determined protection.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. Army-Europe, mentioned Ukraine’s long-awaited spring offensive has clearly kicked off, however cautioned that the present operations is probably not Kyiv’s foremost assault.

“There is a big difference between starting an offensive, and the main attack or main effort of the operations,” he mentioned Sunday, writing for the Center for European Policy Analysis. “When we see large, armored formations join the assault, then I think we’ll know the main attack has really begun.”