On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed for the first time that his army was carrying out “counter-offensive actions” on the front. He, however, refused to say whether this was the big attack that had been planned for months by the general staff in kyiv.
“Counteroffensive and defensive actions are taking place in Ukraine, and I will not talk about them in detail,” Volodymyr Zelensky told a press conference. “You have to trust our military and I trust them,” he added.
These comments follow those of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said on Friday that the great Ukrainian counter-offensive intended to push back troops from Moscow had begun.
However, Putin added, “all attempts at a counter-offensive carried out so far have failed”, referring to losses “in the order of three (Ukrainians) for every” Russian, while affirming that Kiev retained its “potential offensive”.
Zelensky simply called on Saturday not to trust Vladimir Putin’s words. Friday evening, the Ukrainian president had praised the “heroism” of the soldiers of his country, engaged in “particularly hard fights”.
If the Ukrainian authorities seemed to put the scale of the fighting into perspective, the Russian army again reported in its daily report on Saturday attacks by Kiev forces in the regions of Zaporizhia (south) and Donetsk (east). , especially near the devastated city of Bakhmout, which Moscow claimed full conquest in May.
The Russian Defense Ministry released a video showing a column of destroyed Western-made tanks and armored vehicles, some still smoking, in the southern Donetsk region.
On Saturday, the spokesman for the “Eastern” command of the Ukrainian army, Sergiy Cherevaty, claimed on television that the Ukrainian troops had managed to advance 1,400 meters around Bakhmout.
On the diplomatic front, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday in the Ukrainian capital blamed Russia for the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam in southern Ukraine. A disaster that caused the flooding of dozens of towns and villages on both banks of the Dnieper.
“There is absolutely no doubt in our mind that the destruction of the dam is a direct consequence of Russia’s decision to invade the country,” he said alongside Zelensky, without accusing Moscow of having been at the origin of the explosion which destroyed the dam, for which the two camps reject responsibility.
According to the latest report from the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, five people died and 27 are missing in areas under Ukrainian control due to this sudden rise in water levels. The Russian occupation authorities deplored for their part at least eight dead.
Evacuations of local populations took place on both sides of the Dnieper, with each side accusing the other of continuing to bombard the flooded areas. According to the Ukrainian count, 78 localities are flooded, of which 14 are in occupied territory.
Also in the south, the major Ukrainian port of Odessa on the Black Sea was once again targeted by a drone attack at dawn, which left three dead and 26 injured, authorities said.
Russia also promised on Saturday a “response” to the closure of its embassy in Moscow by Iceland, which became the first country to take such a step since the start of the war in February 2022.
Reykjavik, however, assured that this decision did not mean the breaking of diplomatic relations with Russia.