A day after hailing the retaking of three Donetsk province villages, the Ukrainian military said its forces added another small victory Monday by capturing the village of Storozhov in the same eastern region, providing momentum to the initial phase of the country’s long-awaited counteroffensive.
“The national flag is flying over Storozhov again, and it will be the same with every settlement until we liberate all Ukrainian land,’’ Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar wrote in a Telegram app posting with a photo of seven soldiers in front of a hollowed-out building.
Maliar’s stated goal is a long way away and may never be accomplished considering Russian troops control about 20% of Ukrainian territory and have dug in for months over the 600-mile front line to defend their war gains. But reclaiming the villages represents an incursion into the first line of Russian defenses and could allow Ukrainian troops to try a deeper thrust into occupied areas.
Reflecting on operations conducted Saturday and Sunday, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War wrote: “Ukrainian forces made visually verified advances in western Donetsk Oblast and western Zaporizhzhia Oblast, which Russian sources confirmed but sought to downplay.’’
The southeastern Zaporizhzhia province, home to the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, is another focus area of the counteroffensive’s early stages. Maliar said Russia is moving some of its top units from Kherson province to Zaporizhzhia and the devastated eastern city of Bakhmut, and she speculated that Moscow’s forces had blown up the Kakhovka dam last week to prevent Ukraine from attacking them in Kherson.
Developments:
∎ Water levels in Kherson province are down to an average of almost 10 feet higher than normal, Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said Monday, compared to a high of more than 15 feet last week after the Kakhovka dam collapsed. More than 32 towns and villages remain flooded, Prokudin said, and Russian forces have continued shelling inundated areas held by Ukraine on the Dnieper River’s western bank.
∎ Rescue and relocation efforts continue on both sides of the Dnieper for civilians driven from their homes by the flooding. With many homes and shops submerged in polluted water, the U.N. and other aid groups say access to fresh drinking water is crucial and that water-borne diseases pose a major risk.
∎ The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said at least four civilians were killed and 16 wounded by Russian shelling over the last 24 hours, including airstrikes in apartment buildings and a cultural center that hit nine towns and villages in the Donetsk province.
∎ National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Monday that the U.S. would be soon announce further military aid packages for Ukraine featuring weapons well suited for this stage of the war.
Putin decries attacks on Russian civilian areas
Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrated Monday the very same autonomy he’s trying to deny Ukraine as he delivered a Day of Russia speech. The holiday marks the country’s declaration of sovereignty in 1990, a year before it became independent upon the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, which also allowed Ukraine to gain independence.
At a ceremony presenting state awards, Putin urged support for his “special military operation’’ in Ukraine and decried without a hint of irony attacks by Kyiv’s forces on Russian civilian areas.
“I can’t understand in any way why the enemy is striking residential areas. What for? Why? What is the point?’’ he said. “(They are striking) clearly humanitarian facilities. What is the point of this? There is no military point, there is none.”
According to a United Nations report, at least 23,600 Ukrainian civilians had been killed or injured by May 15 since Russia invaded its neighbor. Last fall, Russia launched a monthslong assault on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure ahead of the winter chill.
Contributing: Francesca Chambers, USA TODAY; The Associated Press
