Zelenskiy vows no let up as Ukraine forces cross key river
PRESIDENT Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed there would be no let-up in Ukraine’s fight to regain its territory as Kyiv said its troops had crossed a major river, paving the way for an assault on Russia’s occupation forces in the eastern Donbas region.
Crossing the Oskil River is another important milestone in Ukraine’s counter-offensive in the north-eastern Kharkiv region. The river flows south into the Siversky Donets, which snakes through the Donbas, the main focus of Russia’s invasion. Further beyond lies Luhansk province, the base for Russia’s separatist proxies since 2014 and fully in Russian hands since July after some of the war’s bloodiest battles.
Ukrainian troops “have pushed across the Oskil. From yesterday, Ukraine controls the east bank”, the Ukrainian Armed Forces said.
Serhiy Gaidai, Ukrainian governor of Luhansk, said Ukrainian forces had regained full control of the town of Kreminna and the village of Bilohorivka. The two settlements are located on roads on the northern approach to the city of Lysychansk, whose fall after weeks of grinding battles in July put Luhansk wholly under Russian control. Bilohorivka, the nearer of the two to Lysychansk, is just 8km from the city’s outskirts.
Ukrainian forces swept through the Kharkiv region this month after bursting through the front line, sending thousands of Russian troops fleeing and abandoning their tanks and ammunition. In recent days, the pace of the Ukrainian advance has again slowed, but Zelenskiy said this was because the forces were consolidating and preparing for further offensives.
Ukraine accused Russian forces yesterday of shelling near the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant in the country’s southern Mykolaiv region.
A blast occurred 300m from the reactors and damaged power plant buildings shortly after midnight, Ukraine’s atomic power operator Energoatom said. The reactors were not damaged and no staff were hurt, it said, publishing photographs of a huge crater it said was caused by the blast.
“Russia endangers the whole world. We have to stop it before it’s too late,” Zelenskiy said in a social media post.
The strikes will add to global concern over the potential for an atomic disaster, already elevated over fighting around another Ukrainian nuclear power plant in the south, Zaporizhzhia, captured by Russian forces in March. Moscow has ignored international calls to withdraw and demilitarise it.
Since its forces were driven out of Kharkiv, Russia has repeatedly fired at power plants, water infrastructure and other civilian targets in what Ukraine says is retaliation for defeats on the ground. Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians.
Russia’s rapid losses over the past few weeks have shaken a Kremlin public relations campaign that has never veered from the line that the “special military operation” is “going to plan”.
The Kremlin denied on Monday that Russia was to blame for atrocities that Ukraine says it has uncovered on territory it recaptured from Russian forces..