Ukraine announced the reconquest on Sunday of three villages in the eastern region of Donetsk, the first territorial gains obtained following the “counter-offensive actions” mentioned the day before by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
At the same time, three people were killed and at least 23 others injured in Russian fire on civilians evacuated, including in boats, from flooded areas in southern Ukrainian territory due to the destruction of a dam earlier this week, local authorities said.
On the eastern front, “the glorious soldiers of the 68th brigade (…) liberated the locality of Blagodatné”, which had less than 1,000 inhabitants before the war, said the Ukrainian land forces. All accompanied by a video showing soldiers with a Ukrainian flag in a destroyed building.
The Ukrainians said they captured two Russian soldiers and pro-Russian separatist fighters there.
Less than three hours later, the Ukrainian border guard service assured that a second village, that of Neskutchne, in the same region of Donetsk, was in turn “again under the Ukrainian flag”.
And, in the evening, the Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense Ganna Maliar announced that a third small town, Makarivka, near Blagodatné, had fallen into the hands of troops from kyiv.
“I am grateful to our soldiers for this day (…). Thank you! Thank you for every step, for every fight, for every occupier destroyed!” Zelensky said in his daily message.
These are the first territorial gains announced for months by Ukraine apart from the few hundred meters recently retaken on the outskirts of Bakhmout, a devastated city in the Donetsk region, which Moscow claimed to conquer in May.
Remaining evasive, President Zelensky had admitted on Saturday that his army was carrying out “counter-offensive actions”, while not wanting to talk about it in detail.
His Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had meanwhile assured a day earlier that the great Ukrainian offensive awaited for months had “begun” but that the forces of Kiev had “failed to achieve their objectives” after several days of fierce fighting. .
The Russian Ministry of Defense assured that Ukraine had unsuccessfully attacked a Russian warship patrolling the Black Sea overnight from Saturday to Sunday.
According to him, all the Ukrainian remote control boats were destroyed and the Russian vessel, the Priazovie, was not damaged.
In southern Ukraine, evacuations continue after the sudden rise in water levels caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, for which both sides deny responsibility.
According to the latest figures on Sunday evening provided by Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko, 2,722 people, including 205 children, were evacuated from the southern region of Kherson and 982 others, including 167 children, from the neighboring province of Mykolaiv.
But seven people died and about thirty are still missing following these floods in the territories which are under the control of kyiv.
A total of 77 localities have been flooded, including 14 in the occupied territories, Klymenko said, adding that 162,000 people are also without running water upstream of the Kakhovka dam.
In areas in Russian hands, officials installed by Moscow reported this week more than 7,000 people evacuated as well as eight dead and 13 missing in connection with this same tragedy.
In Kherson, the regional capital, the water began to flow back in certain districts, in spite of the rain, noted AFP journalists.
The first inhabitants of this city returned home to see the damage, like Oleksiï Guessine, 60, who sees his grocery store in the city center for the first time in six days.
Wearing rubber boots, he shovels out the waste and earth that have accumulated there.
“The damage is considerable. In the store, I had water up to my chest, everything below was damaged,” he told AFP.
According to an employee of the Kherson meteorological center, Laura Moussian, the water level has decreased locally by 1.7 meters.
“There could be heavy rain again, which could significantly slow the pace of the decline,” she added, however.
There is also concern about possible water contamination, which has engulfed at least three cemeteries, oil storage terminals and landfills, said Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriï Kostine.
Nearly 450 tonnes of turbine oil also spilled into the Dnieper and then the Black Sea, he said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for its part reiterated on Sunday, faced with divergent data, its request for access to the site where the water level of the tank used to cool the reactors of the Zaporijjia nuclear power plant, located 150 km upstream of the destroyed dam and occupied by the Russians.
12/06/2023 05:58:03 – Kiev (Ukraine) (AFP) © 2023 AFP
