Kyiv has celebrated the first small advances of the long-awaited counter-offensive, an operation that has to allow its troops to retake several territories previously occupied by Russian forces. Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar has announced on Telegram that the Ukrainian flag was once again flying over Storozho, a town in the southwest of Donetsk province and close to the neighboring region of Zaporizhia, in an advance in which four were captured. Russian soldiers, and fifty more died.
This is the fourth town recaptured by Ukrainian forces in less than 24 hours, after the liberation of the villages of Blahodatne, Neskuchne and Makarivka, also in Donetsk province, was announced yesterday.
Several spokespersons for the Ukrainian army have published a video on social networks showing the 35th Marine Brigade, Mikhailo Ostrogradski, who allegedly carried out the liberation, entering the town of Storozheve.
Progress, if confirmed, appears modest, with Makarivka some 5 kilometers from what had been the front line.
The Ukrainian army denounced on Sunday that Russian forces have again detonated a dam, this time in the Donetsk province, to hinder the military counteroffensive with which Ukrainian troops try to recover occupied territories. "They expected an advance by the Armed Forces [in Zaporizhia], and to slow down our advance they resorted to this tactic again," said the Ukrainian military spokesman in the region.
According to the military command, the blowing up of the dam on the Mokri Yaly River has caused "flooding on both banks of the river", but "does not affect offensive operations" of Ukraine in the area. Neither are known data on the ecological and humanitarian consequences.
The counteroffensive, which has forced the Ukrainian operatives to maintain silence, has begun in three sectors of the front, two in the eastern province of Donetsk and another in neighboring Zaporizhia, in southeastern Ukraine; and threatens the land bridge that Russia uses to supply the Crimean peninsula.
For its part, Russia has built extensive fortifications to fend off attack by Western-trained Ukrainian troops, and has described the operation as a failure so far, posting images of destroyed US- and German-made tanks and combat vehicles.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces stated that 25 battles had been fought near Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Maryinka in the Donetsk region and near Bilohorivka in the Luhansk region in the past 24 hours. According to the military command, the Ukrainian forces had continued to counter-attack on Bakhmut's flanks and pushed the Russian forces back up to 700 meters.
Both sides have claimed that their forces have inflicted heavy losses on each other over the past week.
