Ukraine said on Monday that its forces regained more ground in the past 24 hours and retook an area seven times the size of Kyiv this month, despite Russia’s response with strikes on some recaptured areas, reports AFP.
The territorial shifts marked one of Russia's biggest reversals since its troops were turned back from Kyiv in the earliest days of the nearly seven months of fighting, yet Moscow signaled it was no closer to agreeing to a negotiated peace.
The retreat of Russian troops in recent days has relieved locals into bomb-cratered streets, including on Sunday in the strategic but heavily damaged town of Izyum.
Yet by Monday, Moscow had announced air, rocket and artillery attacks on reclaimed areas in the Kharkiv region, a day after Kyiv said Russian strikes on electricity infrastructure had caused power failures.
The retaliatory fire came as Ukraine said forces had retaken more than 20 additional settlements, as they claimed Russian troops are hastily abandoning their positions and fleeing.
Kyiv had already announced the recapture of Izyum in the country's east, while President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that Ukraine's forces retook a total of 6,000 square kilometres (2,320 square miles) from Russian control in September.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday said Ukrainian forces had made "significant progress", due to their resilience as well as US support.
"It's too early to tell exactly where this is going. The Russians maintain very significant forces in Ukraine as well as equipment and arms and munitions. They continue to use it indiscriminately against not just the Ukrainian armed forces but civilians and civilian infrastructure as we've seen," Blinken said.
Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov told French daily Le Monde in a Monday interview that the war has entered a new phase with the help of Western weapons.
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hqoue
