Seven villages ‘liberated’ in Ukraine counteroffensive
Ukraine claims to have retaken seven villages and made small gains in a ‘tough’ counteroffensive against Russian forces.
Ukraine claims to have retaken seven villages and made small gains in a “tough” counteroffensive against Russian forces that France said could last months.
“The fighting is tough, but we are moving forward, this is very important,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a daily address on Monday.
“I thank our guys for every Ukrainian flag that is now returning to its rightful place in villages on the newly de-occupied territory,” he said.
His declaration came only hours before three people were killed and 25 wounded in a Russian missile strike on the central city of Kryvyi Rih. The Ukrainian capital and the northeast city of Kharkiv also came under missile and drone attack.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive, with weapons donated by Western allies, would be last for weeks if not months.
“We want it to be as successful as possible so that we can then start a negotiation phase in good conditions,” he said in Paris, speaking with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish President Andrzej Duda.
Mr Duda said NATO had to “send a clear signal” about Ukraine’s desperate quest to join the bloc at its next summit on July 11 and 12 in Vilnius.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken voiced hope that the offensive would force Russian President Vladimir Putin into talks about ending its invasion. He said the US was “confident that they will continue to have success”.
Ukraine Defence Minister Ganna Malyar said on Telegram that “seven settlements were liberated”, referring to Lobkovo, Levadne and Novodarivka in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, which houses Europe’s largest nuclear plant, now under Russian occupation. Mr Malyar said Ukrainian forces had also regained control of Storozheve in the south of the Donetsk region, near three villages recaptured on Sunday.
“The area of the territory taken under control amounted to 90sq km,” he said.
The Ukrainian defence ministry meanwhile said its forces had advanced “250 to 700m” in the direction of the flashpoint eastern city of Bakhmut.
Russia said earlier on Monday that it had repelled Ukrainian attacks in the same area in the Donetsk region, and fought off Ukrainian attacks in Zaporizhzhia region. The claims by Moscow and Kyiv could not by verified independently.
As Ukraine announced gains, Mr Putin visited soldiers wounded in Ukraine in a rare face-to-face meeting in a hospital in Moscow. `
The Kremlin aired images of the President wearing a dark suit and accompanied by Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu in military attire.
The officials stood in front of a row of men in blue hospital outfits, some of them in wheelchairs.
In southern Ukraine, two more civilian bodies were found drowned in the heavily flooded city of Kherson, raising the death toll to 10 on the Ukrainian-controlled side of the Dnipro River after the Kakhovka dam was breached a week ago.
Officials warned dozens were still missing.
“Currently, we know about 10 dead in Kherson and the region,” Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said on Telegram. “We are also reporting 41 people as missing.”
Also on Monday, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said he was working to extend a deal that allows grain from Ukraine to reach the global market and prevent shortages.
That crucial accord granting safe passage for Ukrainian grain to be exported via Black Sea ports was signed last July by Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN. It was renewed again in May but for only two months, until July 17.
AFP
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