2023-06-11 15:52:42
Ukrainian forces said, on Sunday, that they had regained control of a village from Russian forces in the southeast of the country, in the first residential community to announce its liberation since launching a counterattack a few days ago.
Soldiers raised the Ukrainian flag over a building damaged in previous bombing in an unverified video released by the Ukrainian 68th Brigade that identified the village as Blahodatny in the Donetsk region.
“We see the first results of counterattack moves,” a spokesman for one of the sectors of the Ukrainian army said on television.
He added that the village is located on the outskirts of the Donetsk and Zaporizhia regions, a few kilometers south of the Kiev-controlled village of Velika Novoselka.
On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave the strongest signal yet that Kiev had launched a long-awaited counter-offensive to retake territory in the east and south from Russia, stressing that “counter-offensive and defensive operations” were already underway.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that the Ukrainian military offensive had been underway for some time, but had failed to break through Russia’s defense lines and had suffered heavy losses.
Kiev officials maintain a strict period of silence about the operations, urging Ukrainians not to disclose any information that could jeopardize the operation.
“We expel the enemy”
With so little information coming out of Kiev, and so little independent news coverage from the frontline, it’s nearly impossible to assess the situation on the battlefield.
The video recording from Blahodatny showed the Ukrainian forces inside a badly damaged building, while the sound of artillery could be heard in the distance.
“We are expelling the enemy from the lands of our country. This is the warmest feeling ever. Ukraine will win, Ukraine is above all,” said one soldier, whose identity was not released in the video on Facebook.
Russia said at least twice in the past few days that it had repulsed Ukrainian attacks near the village of Velika Novoselka.
The occupied southeast is considered a potential priority for Kiev’s forces, as it may seek to threaten Russia’s land bridge to the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed, which would divide the Russian forces into two halves.
Blahodatny is located about 95 km northwest of the city of Mariupol, which overlooks the Sea of Azov, on the southern end of the land bridge. Russia took control of the city last year after besieging and bombing it.
Russia built huge fortifications in the areas it occupied to prepare to repel the Ukrainian counterattack launched by Kiev with thousands of trained and armed forces from the West.
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