Ukrainian military officials said on June 12 that their troops had retaken another southeastern village from the Russian forces, as part of a stepped-up counteroffensive campaign against Moscow's more than 15-month invasion of Ukraine.
Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar wrote on Telegram that Ukraine’s flag was again flying over the village of Storozhov adding that all Ukrainian land would be eventually liberated. A day earlier, Ukrainian officials had said that a cluster of three small villages south of the town of Velika Novosilke in the eastern Donetsk region had been liberated from Russian control.
The villages are located in the so-called “Vremivka ledge”, a section of the front line where the Russian-controlled area protrudes into territory held by Ukraine. The area is of several epicentres of intense fighting.
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The Russian Defence Ministry hasn’t confirmed the Russian retreat from the villages, but some military bloggers have acknowledged the loss of Russian control over them.
Russian authorities, meanwhile, have said their troops have largely held their ground along the over 1,000-km arc of front line area along the southern and eastern parts of Ukraine.
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Western analysts and military officials have opined that any effort to rid entrenched, powerfully-armed, and skilled Russian troops would likely take months, and the success of any Ukrainian counteroffensive is far from certain.
On June 10, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said “counteroffensive, defensive actions are taking place”, a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted that the counteroffensive had started — and Ukrainian forces were taking “significant losses”. He did not elaborate, and Ukrainian authorities have not publicly specified the tune of losses among their troops.
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The reported Ukrainian advance comes as authorities on both sides of the active front line along the Dnieper River in the southern Kherson region pressed on with rescue and relocation efforts for civilians driven from their homes by the flooding from the breach of the Kakhovka dam last week.
The U.N. and other aid groups say access to fresh drinking water is a crucial need and that the potential spread of water-borne disease remains a big worry. On June 11, a local official said that three people were killed when Moscow’s troops opened fire on a boat evacuating people from Russian-occupied areas.
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Late on June 11, Mr. Zelensky said that envoys from the International Criminal Court (ICC) had visited the region to investigate the disaster, which has driven thousands from their homes and left at least 14 people dead.
“It is very important that the representatives of International Justice have seen the consequences of this Russian act of terrorism with their own eyes and heard for themselves that Russian terror continues,” Mr. Zelensky said.
Ukrainian authorities have accused Russian forces, which controlled the area around the Kakhovka dam, of deliberately destroying it. Russian officials have blamed Ukrainian shelling for its destruction.
