Ukraine reclaims more territory, reports capturing many POWs | AP News
Category: News & Politics
Via: perrie-halpern • 2 years ago • 22 commentsBy: ELENA BECATOROS and HANNA ARHIROVA S (AP NEWS)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian troops expanded their territorial gains Monday, pushing all the way to the country's northeastern border in places, and claimed to have captured a record number of Russian soldiers as part of the lightning advance that forced Moscow to make a hasty retreat.
A spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence said Russian troops were surrendering en masse as "they understand the hopelessness of their situation." A Ukrainian presidential adviser said there were so many POWs that the country was running out of space to accommodate them.
Blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flags fluttered over newly liberated towns across a wide swath of reclaimed land. The Ukrainian military said it had freed more than 20 settlements in 24 hours. In recent days, Kyiv's forces have captured territory at least twice the size of greater London, according to the British Defense Ministry.
After months of little discernible movement on the battlefield, the momentum has lifted Ukrainian morale and provoked rare public criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin's war.
"In some areas of the front, our defenders reached the state border with the Russian Federation," said Oleh Syniehubov, governor of the northeastern Kharkiv region.
The counteroffensive left the Kremlin struggling for a response to its largest military defeat in Ukraine since Russian forces pulled back from areas near Kyiv after a botched attempt to capture the capital early in the invasion.
The Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged the setback in a map that showed its troops pressed back along a narrow patch of land on the border with Russia — a tacit admission of big Ukrainian gains.
Reports of chaos abounded as Russian troops pulled out.
"The Russians were here in the morning. Then at noon, they suddenly started shouting wildly and began to run away, charging off in tanks and armored vehicles," Dmytro Hrushchenko, a resident of recently liberated Zaliznychne, a small town near the eastern front line, told Sky News.
Video taken by the Ukrainian military showed soldiers raising the Ukrainian flag over battle-damaged buildings. In one scene, a fighter wiped his boots on a Russian flag on the ground. Other videos showed Ukrainians inspecting the wreckage of Russian military vehicles, including tanks.
In his evening address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his forces have liberated more than 6,000 square kilometers (2,300 square miles) in the east and the south since the beginning of September.
Now Ukrainian teams are disarming land mines and other unexploded weapons in the recaptured areas and searching for any remaining Russian troops, officials said.
It was not yet clear if the Ukrainian blitz could signal a turning point in the war. Momentum has switched back and forth before, but rarely with such a big and sudden swing.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich did not specify the number of Russian prisoners but said the POWs would be exchanged for Ukrainian service members held by Moscow. Military intelligence spokesman Andrey Yusov said the captured troops included "significant" numbers of Russian officers.
Ukraine's deputy interior minister accused fleeing Russian forces of burning official documents and concealing bodies in an attempt to cover up rights violations in the areas they controlled until last week.
The mood was jubilant across the country.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city and the capital of the region where the gains have been made, authorities hailed that power and water had been restored to about 80% of the region's population following Russian attacks on infrastructure that knocked out electricity in many places across Ukraine.
"You are heroes!!!" Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram, referring to crews who restored utilities in Ukraine's second-biggest city. "Thanks to everyone who did everything possible on this most difficult night for Kharkiv to normalize the life of the city as soon as possible."
Meanwhile in Russia, signs of disarray emerged as Russian military bloggers and other commentators chastised the Kremlin for failing to mobilize more forces and take stronger action against Ukraine.
Russia has continuously stopped short of calling its invasion a war, instead describing it as a "special military operation" and relying on on a limited contingent of volunteers instead of a mass mobilization that could spur civil discontent and protest.
Ramzan Kadyrov, the Moscow-backed leader of the Russian region of Chechnya, publicly criticized the Russian Defense Ministry for what he called "mistakes" that made the Ukrainian blitz possible.
Even more notable, such criticism seeped onto state-controlled Russian TV.
"People who convinced President Putin that the operation will be fast and effective ... these people really set up all of us," Boris Nadezhdin, a former parliament member, said on a talk show on NTV television. "We're now at the point where we have to understand that it's absolutely impossible to defeat Ukraine using these resources and colonial war methods."
Some in Russia blamed Western weapons and fighters for the losses.
"It's not Ukraine that attacked Izium, but NATO," read a headline in the state-supported Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, referring to one of the areas where Russia said it has withdrawn troops.
Elsewhere, residents of a Russian village just across the border from Ukraine were evacuated after shelling by Ukrainian troops killed one person, according to Russia's Tass news agency.
The report cited the head of the local administration in Logachevka, who said Ukrainian troops opened fire at a border checkpoint.
Pro-Kremlin separatists reported that Ukrainian troops were approaching the town of Lyman, a rail hub captured by Russia in late May that offers access to bridges over the nearby Siversky Donets river.
Denis Pushilin, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, acknowledged that the situation was "difficult."
Even amid Ukraine's ebullience, the casualties kept mounting. Ukraine's presidential office said Monday that at least four civilians were killed and 11 others wounded in a series of Russian attacks in nine regions of the country. The U.N. Human Rights Office said last week that 5,767 civilians have been killed so far.
Among Monday's attacks were strikes on residential areas in Kharkiv that killed at least one civilian and set multiple fires, local officials said.
In a reminder of the war's toll, a council member in Izium accused enemy forces of killing civilians and committing other atrocities. Maksym Strelnikov told reporters Monday in an online briefing that hundreds of people had died during the fighting and after Russia seized the town in March.
Many died from shelling and could not get a proper burial, he said. His claims could not be immediately verified, but similar scenes have played out in other places captured by Russian forces.
The Ukrainian military also claimed to have found more evidence of human rights violations by Russian occupiers. It did not elaborate.
Izium was a major base for Russian forces in the Kharkiv region. The first Ukrainian flag was raised over the city on Saturday, according to Strelnikov. Residents, some wrapped in the country's flag, greeted Ukrainian forces and offered them food.
Ukraine said the Russians continued shelling Nikopol across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia power plant, damaging several buildings there and leaving Europe's largest nuclear facility in a precarious position. The last operational reactor in that plant has been shut down in a bid to prevent a radiation disaster as fighting raged nearby.
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Monday that Kyiv "will likely increasingly dictate the location and nature of the major fighting."
The British Defense Ministry said the retreat would likely further deteriorate the trust Russian forces have in their commanders and put Moscow's troops on the back foot.
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Arhirova reported from Kyiv.
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Open Source has confirmed 300 plus tanks, IFV and other vehicles captured or destroyed. In addition numerous stores of ammo.
Slava Ukraine.
but, but, they are saving their ammo and resolve for the Donbas...
/S
Link to a series of photos of abandoned and captured Russian equipment.
Evening...best pictures I have seen all week...🇺🇦
So, Ukraine has accomplished in six months what the United States military and NATO could not do in 70 years. Can we get a refund?
You know, the Russian retreat from the Kiev area was being touted as a great victory. Didn't we hear how Ukraine had Russia on the run? Ukraine pushed to the northern border then, too. This isn't the first time Ukraine has recaptured territory. This isn't the first time we've been deluged with pictures of burned out tanks and captured equipment. This isn't the first time Ukraine has boasted of capturing large numbers of prisoners.
Russia has recruited and conscripted at least 100,000 eastern Ukrainians into military service. Russia has been supplying arms and munitions to eastern Ukrainians. How do we know who is fighting who? How do we know the Kiev government is fighting Russians or Ukrainians?
People are not cheering the people of Ukraine. People are cheering an authoritarian government in Kiev. And that government has been shown to be corrupt, duplicitous, and quite willing to kill Ukrainians. The Kiev government isn't any different than the government of Turkey or Syria. Or China, for that matter.
“Can we get a refund?”
Of note, Ukraine is not a member of NATO…so not sure what you’re getting at. Also not sure whom you are defending here? It sounds as if you are blasting the Ukrainian government…a sovereign nation with the resolve to defend themselves from a hostile foreign invader.
On second thought, it is obvious whom you are defending. The question is why.
Putin invaded before Ukraine could join NATO. Ukraine had been using NATO membership as a threat toward Russia.
You do understand that there has been a conflict between Ukraine and Russia since 2008? You do know that NATO (and the United States) had been operating a military training base in western Ukraine since the 1990s? You do realize that the United States (and NATO) had been propping up the unelected interim government following the Euromaidan protests (or was it an insurrection) in 2013/2014? You do remember that the unelected interim government sent tanks into eastern Ukraine in eastern Ukraine to quell protests and uprisings? You do know how the war in Donbas started, don't you? You do know there were negotiated agreements to resolve the internal conflict in 2015? And you do know that the United States opposed those negotiated agreements?
So you're victim blaming. Saying Ukraine are the aggressors.
Ukraine is no more a victim than Russia. They're the same. Ukraine isn't any different than Russia.
From the stand point of the United States, there aren't any 'good guys' in this war. The US involvement in Ukraine isn't any different than US support for Saddam Hussein when Iraq was invaded by Iran. How'd that turn out?
Your usual bullshit.
Yeah, that whole language thing, different form of government, different monetary system is all non existent./S
Ukraine has an independent Orthodoxy and is pro Europe and pro Ukraine.
Russia is quite the opposite.
If we shared an easily accessible border with Russia and they invaded the easter US I think we would have been able to repel the invasion quite a bit faster than Ukraine.
Also, Ukraine hasn't invaded and defeated Russia, they are simply defeating and reclaiming Ukrainian territory. And on top of that Ukraine is being funded and supplied by NATO and the US and without that support would likely not be where they are now. So, your apparent tongue in cheek rebuke of NATO and the US military comparing the last 70 years of conflict to the Ukrainian defense is like comparing apples and orangutans.
The United States really does share a border with Russia in the Bering Straight. It may not be a land border but it is a border nonetheless. The border between Russia and the United States is situated on the international date line.
I am old enough to remember the Soviets in Havana. But I don't recall the US military driving them out. Maybe history has been rewritten.
NATO and United States military was in Ukraine before Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. The NATO PfP training center (partnership for peace) was in continuous operation until it appeared Russia would invade. When it appeared that Russia would invade, the NATO and US forces peed in their boots and waved goodbye as a precautionary measure.
Our military was there and our military ran before the shooting started.
Which is why I said " easily accessible border" which the Bering Straight is not. Trying to march a large army into Alaska would be extremely difficult if not all but impossible.
" After several days of tense negotiations, an agreement was reached between Kennedy and Khrushchev: publicly, the Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union , subject to United Nations verification, in exchange for a US public declaration and agreement to not invade Cuba again ."
Cuban Missile Crisis - Wikipedia
" When it appeared that Russia would invade, the NATO and US forces peed in their boots and waved goodbye as a precautionary measure."
First, having a training center there did not mean they were a NATO member nation and neither NATO nor the US had any authorization to engage Russian troops. Second, I'd like to see you tell our dedicated men and women in uniform to their faces about how they supposedly "peed in their boots". Way to disrespect and dishonor the men and women who put their lives on the line to protect our nation on a daily basis.
I'd say you should be ashamed of yourself for such a disgusting unpatriotic comment that disparages our military while simultaneously praises Russia and Putin as apparently something so feared as to make our troops "pee" themselves, but that would require having any shame left which clearly doesn't seem to be the case.
Well there's a despicable comment.
On February 12, 2022 the Pentagon ordered 160 members of the Florida National Guard to redeploy to other European bases. NATO had no troops in Ukraine for obvious reasons. The State Department also reduced it's embassy personnel to a bare minimum.
Would you have preferred FNG or embassy casualties and have our personnel drawn into this? I cannot imagine the hissy fit you would have had if even one US service member were scratched.
I know quite of few currently serving in Latvia and Poland that would enjoy debating that with the dumb asses that would make such a horrific comment.
Something that a Russian bot would say. Seems Boris is running amuck on NT.
As you safely say from your basement in Minnesota.
Retirement and old age affect people differently.
Yes, in many cases they become stupid beyond belief.
That's correct, Ukraine is not a member of NATO. Why, in your opinion, would Ukraine want both a NATO and Russian presence inside Ukraine? At the least, that creates a perception that Ukraine was trying to play both ends to the middle.
Well, gee, we don't seem to have a problem sending US Coast Guard cutters into the South China Sea. We don't seem to have a problem sending troops into other regional conflicts. We didn't have problem with bombarding Libya and putting people at risk in the aftermath.
Sending reinforcements into western Ukraine would have sent a message, wouldn't it? Wouldn't that have given Russia second thoughts about invading Ukraine? Supposedly Biden sent a lot of troops to Europe to discourage Russia from invading NATO countries. Why wouldn't that have worked in Ukraine?
Russia wasn't threatening western Ukraine where NATO has maintained a presence since the 1990s. It seems the risks would have been rather low.
Well gee, a scatter shot retort.
No & no.
Yes, countries with NATO agreements.
Because the Russians are a bunch of brain dead romanticists who think nukes are an option.
I can only suggest staying away from "illustrious" websites like stalkerzone or Russian Reality both of which claim secret US naval bases in Mariupol, Odessa and Berydansk.
Russian cruise missiles already damaged Ukrainian training bases near Lviv,
so no, the risks combatting crazy people with nukes is never low.