The governor of the Luhansk region, Serhii Gaidai, told Ukrainian television, without giving locations, that “a counterattack is underway and … our forces are enjoying some success. Let’s leave it at that.” Giving its regular situation report on Wednesday morning, Ukraine’s military said its ground forces attacked seven Russian command posts and 13 “objects of concentration of Russian manpower”, without specifying where. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up It also said its forces repelled Russian attacks on several towns in the eastern Donetsk region, including the strategic town of Bakhmut. A presidential adviser had tweeted earlier on Tuesday that there would be “excellent news” from the president about the operation in the northeastern region of Kharkiv. In his afternoon address, however, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy made little mention of operations in the Kharkiv region, but said five Russian cruise missiles were downed on Tuesday, most of them in the south. Reuters could not independently verify the Ukrainian claims and there was no immediate response from Russia. But an official in the pro-Moscow breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic on Tuesday gave an unusually candid account of the fighting in Balakliia, an eastern town of 27,000 located between Kharkiv and Russia’s Izyum, a major rail hub used by Moscow to feed its forces. “Today, the Ukrainian armed forces, after prolonged artillery preparation… launched an attack on Balakliia…” Daniil Bezsonov said on Telegram, adding that if the city was lost, Russian forces in Izyum would become vulnerable to the northwest their. “Ukrainian armed forces concentrated massive fire on mobile groups of the Donetsk People’s Republic, which had taken up defensive positions in nearby forests. “At this time, Balakliia is under operational encirclement and within the firing range of Ukrainian artillery. All approaches are cut off by fire.” Several social media posts by military bloggers and witnesses also reported fighting around Balaklia. Vadym Krokhmal, a member of the city council of Kupyansk, a city east of Kharkiv that has been occupied for the past five months, posted a video online urging residents not to take part in any referendum on joining Russia that the occupation forces may hold . “Very soon, the Ukrainian armed forces will liberate Kupyansk. We know it, we are sure of it,” Vadim said, advising people to stock up on food and charge energy sources. “All we need is a little patience.” Little information has emerged on the progress of the main Ukrainian offensive in the southern Kherson region, with Kyiv barring journalists from the front lines and releasing only limited reports to maintain the element of surprise. Russia says it has repelled the Kherson attack, but Ukraine has reported steady success. “We are continuing positional battles and there are already areas that we have liberated,” Natalya Khomeniuk, a spokeswoman for the southern district of the Ukrainian armed forces, told national television, according to media reports. A statement from the command of the southern region said that in the last 24 hours, Ukrainian forces killed 83 Russian servicemen, destroyed five tanks, 12 shells, three armored vehicles and three ammunition depots. It also said anti-aircraft fire downed a Russian Su-25 attack jet. Western military experts say Ukraine’s aim in the south appears to be to trap thousands of Russian troops on the west bank of the great Dnipro river and cut them off by destroying their rear supply lines. The announcement of a simultaneous Ukrainian advance near Kharkiv was a sign that Russian troops were struggling to build up along the front, Mark Hertling, the former commander of US ground forces in Europe, said in a tweet.
SECURITY OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres outlined concrete steps for both sides to demilitarize the area around the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. The first was to commit Russian and Ukrainian forces to refrain from military activity in and around the plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. “As a second step, an agreement on a demilitarized perimeter should be secured,” Guterres told the UN Security Council on Tuesday. “Specifically, this will include a commitment by Russian forces to withdraw all military personnel and equipment from that perimeter and a commitment by Ukrainian forces not to enter it.” read more Russia’s UN ambassador Vasily Nebenzia told reporters before the council meeting, “if we demilitarize, then the Ukrainians will immediately step in and destroy the whole thing.” Russian soldiers were defending the station, Nebenzia said. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors led by the agency’s chief, Rafael Grossi, braved shelling to cross the front line and reach the power station last week. Two experts from the UN’s nuclear watchdog remained to maintain a long-term presence. A long-awaited IAEA report released on Tuesday listed damaged parts of the plant, including a building housing nuclear fuel, a radioactive waste storage facility and a building housing an alarm system. He said the power station had been cut off multiple times from off-site power supplies that are critical to its safe operation. read more The report avoided blaming any side for the damage. The factory was seized by Russian forces shortly after they invaded Ukraine on February 24, but is still operated by Ukrainian technicians. It is located on a Russian bank of a huge reservoir, opposite the Ukrainian positions across the water. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up Report from Reuters. Written by Simon Cameron-Moore. Edited by Stephen Coates Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
