Russian President Vladimir Putin formalised the annexation of four Ukrainian regions — about 18% of Ukraine’s territory — on Wednesday despite major battlefield reversals in recent days shrinking the amount of seized territory Moscow controls.
In the east, Ukrainian forces have been expanding an offensive after capturing the main Russian bastion in the north of Donetsk, the town of Lyman.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday night that his military had made major, rapid advances against Russian forces in the past week, taking back dozens of towns in regions in the south and east that Russia has declared annexed.
Russian forces in the Donetsk and Kherson regions, who have been forced to retreat in recent days, have dug in at new positions where they hope to halt the Ukrainian advance.
In Kherson, withdrawing Russian forces were planting mines on “infrastructure facilities” and in homes, it said.
Battlefield reports:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday night that his military had taken back dozens of towns over the past week in regions in the south and east that Russia has declared annexed
Russian forces were consolidating in Kreminna in eastern Ukraine and Svatove in the northeast, trying to stop Ukrainian offensives in both areas, Ukraine’s Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said on Wednesday. Russian troops were laying mines and had occupied the psychiatric hospital in Svatove, he said
“In some areas of the front line it was possible to extend the area we hold from between 10 to 20 km,” the southern Operational Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) said of recent advances.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had fired 12 drones from the south. It had shot down six of them while others had landed in Bila Tserkva in Kyiv region, where a local official said infrastructure had been damaged and one person wounded. Ukraine says Iran is supplying Russia with drones, which Tehran denies.
Zelenskiy said he had met top military officials to discuss new types of weapons used by Russia, which he did not specify but likely refers to the drones, as well as next moves and the stabilisation of newly liberated territory.
Reuters was not immediately able to verify the battlefield reports.