Ukrainian forces have recaptured more territory in the territory illegally annexed by Russia, with Kyiv forces advancing near the southern city of Kherson and consolidating the conquests to the east.
Russian-based officials in Kherson confirmed the advance but said Moscow troops were digging.
Ukrainian troops also moved to Russian-occupied Luhansk in the east.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, “there are new settlements liberated in different regions”.
During his nightly speech, President Zelensky said that “heavy fighting continues in many areas”, but he did not provide details. The progress of Ukraine’s counterattacks was closely monitored and journalists were largely kept off the front line but in the south, Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed leader in the Kherson region, admitted that Ukrainian troops had broken through near Dudchany, a city on the Dnipro River about 30 km (20 miles) south of the former front line. The river is called the Dnieper by the Russians.
“Ukrainian troops occupy settlements,” said Saldo. Some Russian reports claim that the Ukrainians have now taken Dudchany.
Russian defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Ukrainian tanks had “driven a large wedge” south of Zolota Balka, a village that marked the former front line on the Dnipro.
He claimed that the Russians had killed about 130 Ukrainian soldiers in those battles.
According to Saldo, two Ukrainian battalions tried to reach the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant, about 70 km east of Kherson. The power plant is located in the port city of Nova Kakhovka
Meanwhile, Kyiv’s forces in the east continued an advance that penetrated Luhansk, a Moscow-annexed province last week and previously under near-complete Russian control.
On Saturday, Ukrainian troops recaptured the vital city of Lyman in the east, near the Luhansk regional border.
The Russian army had turned Lyman into a logistic base. A commander of the Russian proxy forces in Luhansk said Ukrainian troops had entered the region a few kilometers before being killed.
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Kherson and Luhansk are among the four regions that Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared part of Russia, following so-called referendums labeled fraudulent by Kyiv and its Western allies. Russia does not fully control any of the four regions.
On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was ridiculed online after admitting that Russia was still deciding which areas it “annexed”, suggesting that Moscow does not know where its self-proclaimed borders are.
Peskov said the entire Luhansk and Donetsk regions were part of Russia but said the Kremlin would “continue consultations with the population on the borders of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions.”
Kyiv has vowed to retake all of Russia’s annexed territory, including Crimea, which was occupied by Russian forces in 2014.
The Russian Defense Ministry said reservists recruited under Putin’s mobilization order last month are undergoing intensive combat training in the Russian-controlled regions of Lugansk and Donetsk. The Kremlin plans to call up around 300,000 reservists – but Putin has not set an upper limit
