He has taken the initiative in the war with his counterattacks. And he prepares to continue the offensive.
Ukraine has taken the initiative in the war with its counterattacks in the south and east of the country and after changing the situation at the front, after a summer of positional fighting in Donbas, it is preparing to continue the offensive.
“The Armed Forces of Ukraine continue to liberate the territories occupied by Russia. Since the beginning of September Ukraine has regained control of more than 3,000 square kilometersValeri Zaluzhni, Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said on Facebook.
According to the senior military officer, “in the direction of Kharkov we began to advance not only to the south and east, but to the north. There are 50 kilometers left to the state border.”
For his part, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, predicted in his speech at the 17th meeting of the Yalta European Strategy, held the day before, a “rapid vacancy” from the country this winter as the Russians “are fleeing in some directions.
“But for this our army needs a systematic supply of the necessary types of weapons,” he said.
For Zelenski, “this winter is a turning point and can lead to a rapid de-occupation of the Ukraine (…) If we were a little stronger with weapons, we could vacate faster.”
The Ukrainian command found that “the enemy continues to suffer losses” after being “without support measures and going into a state of panic”.
According to the Ukrainian General Staff in its part of the war, the Russian forces have suffered heavy casualties during the fighting and mentioned that 75 wounded troops were transferred to the Russian region of Belgorod, close to the border.
Defeat for the Russian forces
The American Institute for War Studies (ISW) was more direct in its assessments, stating that “the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kharkov region is defeating the Russian forces and collapsing the northern axis of pro-Russian Donbas.”
Referring to the “regrouping” of Russian forces announced the day before by the Russian Defense Ministry, the ISW noted that “are not conducting a controlled withdrawal and they are hurriedly fleeing from the south-east of the Kharkov region to escape the encirclement of Izyum.”
According to the think tank, Ukrainian territorial gains in the last five days have been higher than those of the Russian forces “in all their operations since April.”
“Ukrainian forces are likely to capture the city of Izyum in the next 48 hours if they haven’t already. The liberation of Izyum would be the most important Ukrainian military achievement since winning the battle of kyiv in March,” the ISW added.
This will affect the future of the Russian operation in Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the main Ukrainian strongholds in Donbas, the US center estimated.
The Russian response
Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense, which described its withdrawal from the Kharkov region as a “regrouping”, He claimed to have caused more than 200 casualties to the Ukrainian Army in this direction during the last day with high-precision missiles.
“As a result of our attacks, troops and war equipment from units of the 14th and 92nd motorized brigades of the Ukrainian Army were annihilated in the towns of Starovirivka, Chuguyiv and Voloska Balakliya,” Russian command spokesman Igor Konashenkov reported.
Russian troops also attacked a brigade of the Territorial Defenses in the town of Nova Vodolaga and a foreign mercenary emplacement in Klugino-Bashkirivka, it added.
According to Konashenkov, during the Ukrainian counter-offensives in the south and east of the country between September 6 and 10, more than 4,000 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and another 8,000 wounded.
nuclear power plant
The Russian Defense Ministry also referred to the situation at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia, where Ukraine and Russia are accusing each other of the attacks.
According to the Russian command, since last September 1 the plant and Energodar, the neighboring city, underwent 26 artillery attacks by the Ukrainian forces.
Konashenkov said that as a result of the fire directed at a transformer substation on September 6 and the high-voltage line on September 8, the city was left without power twice.
In that context, Russian authorities stopped this Sunday the last reactor that continued to operate in this energy facility due to the persistence of attacks against the plant.
“The reactor was stopped, at the moment work is being carried out to cool it down,” said Renat Karchaa, adviser to the Russian Rosenergoatom consortium.
According to the specialist, the bloc’s disconnection took place in a safe regime around 4:00 Moscow time (1:00 GMT).
Karchaa previously warned that this step is not an absolute guarantee against a nuclear accident if the artillery attacks continue, for which he blamed the Ukrainian Army.
The director general of the International Nuclear Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, warned this Friday about the possibility of an accident after a bombardment that cut the external electrical connection with the nuclear power plant, the largest of its kind in Europe.
Source: EFE and AFP
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