Ukraine claimed on Sunday to have pushed back the Russian army “from 3 to 8 km” deep on the left bank of the Dnieper occupied by the army of Moscow, the first numerical estimate of the advance of Kiev’s troops in this area, after months of unsuccessful counter-offensive.
“Preliminary figures vary from 3 to 8 km, depending on the specifics, geography and topography of the left bank,” army spokesperson Natalia Goumeniouk told Ukrainian television. If this advance is confirmed, it would be the biggest push by the Ukrainian army against the Russians in several months. Natalia Goumeniouk did not, however, indicate whether Ukrainian forces completely controlled this area of the Kherson region (south) or whether the Russian army had withdrawn in the face of attacks by Kiev troops.
“The enemy continues its artillery fire on the right bank,” she detailed, estimating the number of Russian soldiers present in this area at “several tens of thousands”.
AFP was unable to confirm these claims.
Launched in June, the long-awaited counter-offensive by Kiev and its Western allies failed, allowing the Ukrainian army to retake only a handful of villages in the South and East. But on Friday, kyiv said it had taken positions on the left bank of the Dnieper, while reporting “heavy fighting” and “strong resistance” from Russia.
Moscow, for its part, has not mentioned the Ukrainian bridgeheads until now.
Before that, the last major success claimed by Ukraine in its counter-offensive was the recapture of the village of Robotyné in August, in the southern region of Zaporizhia.
Taking a position in depth on the left bank of the Dnieper could allow kyiv to carry out a more significant assault in the South. But for this, Ukraine must succeed in deploying its army in this difficult to access, sandy and marshy area, facing solid Russian defenses.
A repatriated orphan
At the same time, explosive drone attacks, signatures of the war in Ukraine, have increased in recent days. During the night from Saturday to Sunday, Kiev and Moscow were targeted by opposing attacks from these small devices, which were however largely intercepted by anti-aircraft defenses and did not cause any casualties, according to the respective authorities.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, a drone “was destroyed by air defense equipment […] over the territory of the Bogorodsky urban district of the Moscow region.
Ukrainian drone attacks targeting Moscow were frequent in the spring, ahead of and at the start of kyiv’s counter-offensive that began in June, but they have become rare in recent weeks.
For its part, Kiev was the target, for the second night in a row, of a barrage of explosive drones launched by the Russian army, of Iranian manufacture “Shahed”, according to the military authorities, who reported “an intensification” of attacks on the Ukrainian capital.
In total, “fifteen of the twenty enemy drones were destroyed,” the Ukrainian general staff said in a statement.
The deputy head of the presidential administration, Oleksiï Kouleba, assured on Telegram that kyiv was “increasing the number of mobile units” to counter these Russian attacks and “strengthening the protection of energy infrastructure”.
In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had hit a fuel depot in the central Kirovograd region and an ammunition warehouse near Kiev.
The day before, the Ukrainian Air Force claimed to have shot down 29 drones out of the 38 “Shahed” launched by Russian forces across the territory in the largest nighttime drone attack since the end of September. Anticipating new strikes on energy sites, Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday called on his army to be “100% effective, despite all the difficulties, despite fatigue”.
On Sunday, a Russian bombing in Kherson (south) left five injured, including a three-year-old girl, according to Interior Minister Igor Klymenko. A young 17-year-old Ukrainian orphan, Bogdan Iermokhine, was also repatriated to Ukraine after being sent to Russia in the spring of 2022 following the siege of Mariupol in the southeast, authorities in Kiev and Moscow announced.