The kyiv counteroffensive is two weeks old this Sunday and forces Moscow to recognize the first advances of the enemy in southern Ukraine, not far from the land corridor linking Donbas and the Crimean peninsula.
The Russian representative in the Ukrainian region of Zaporizhia, Vladimir Rogov, today admitted the loss of “operational control” over a town in the area as part of the enemy’s offensive actions. “By filling the western approaches and suburbs of Piatikhatki with the corpses of hundreds of its military, the enemy managed to take it under operational control,” Rogov wrote on Telegram.
The chairman of the “Together with Russia” movement in Zaporizhia added that Russian artillery is now hitting the enemy to prevent him from entrenching in the town. If the Ukrainian armed forces manage to gain a foothold in Pyatikhatki and receive reinforcements, the next town in their sights will be Zherebianki, he warned. From there, Ukrainian troops will be able to begin an offensive on the city of Vasilivka, 70 kilometers from Melitopol.
The Russian Ministry of Defense did not confirm in its daily report the loss of control over Piatikhatki, but it did acknowledge that the heaviest fighting is now taking place on the Zaporizhia front. “During the last day, the Ukrainian armed forces continued attempts to attack on the Zaporizhia, South Donetsk and Donetsk fronts,” the military report said.
The Russian military assures that “all the attacks” of the enemy are repelled and only in Zaporizhia the kyiv forces lost “more than 200 soldiers and 33 tanks” in one day. Another 210 enemy soldiers were killed in the last day in the Donetsk sector of the front, according to the Russian side.