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One of the Telegram channels of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has given civilian casualty figures over the past 24 hours, claiming that 11 settlements in the territory it claims to control were fired upon by Ukrainian forces. It claims four people were killed, three were injured and seven houses and three civil infrastructure facilities were damaged.
The claims have not been independently verified. Russia, Syria and North Korea are the only UN member states that recognize the Donetsk People’s Republic as a legitimate authority.
The Ukrainian military says it has forced Russian forces out of more than 20 cities and towns in the past 24 hours, according to a Facebook post by Ukraine’s general staff.
The general staff also claimed that Russian forces were fleeing to the occupied areas of the Donbas or back to Russia itself.
Ukrainian troops raise their flag in the liberated village of Vasylenkove in the Kharkiv region. Photo: Territorial Defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine/Reuters
The liberation of settlements from the Russian invaders in Kharkiv and Donetsk regions continues. As previously reported, during the retreat, Russian troops quickly abandon their positions and flee deep into temporarily occupied territories or the territory of the Russian Federation. This trend persists. Thus, during the last day, the occupiers have taken looted goods and vehicles from the local residents of Velikiy Burluk and Dvorichna settlements of Kharkiv Oblast.
In general, during the past day, the defense forces managed to evict the enemy from more than 20 settlements. Taking them under full control and stabilization measures are underway.
The publication said that the Russians were concentrating their fire on controlling the Donetsk Oblast, “holding the temporarily captured territories and interrupting the offensive of our troops in certain directions.” All areas of Ukraine were under threat from Russian fire, he said.
In the Kherson area, Ukraine says the Russians have suffered heavy losses. “The rest of the military have extremely low morale and psychological state, they massively refuse to return to the combat zone,” the message states.
Russian forces in the Kherson region on Friday. Photo: Document of the Press Service of the Ministry of Defense of Russia/EPA
For its part, the Russian military said on Telegram on Monday that it had “inflicted defeat” on Ukrainian units in the region’s Pristin, Boldyrevka, Sinikha, Beloe, Komarovka, Gorokhovatka, Kupyansk, Senkovo and Podvysokoye from Kharkiv. More than 250 Ukrainian soldiers were killed, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
The Russians also said heavy losses had been inflicted on Ukraine in the Nikolaev (Mykolaiv) area. In total, the ministry said, more than 4,000 Ukrainian soldiers had died.
Updated at 07.14 BST
Ukraine has accused Russia of launching cruise missile attacks on Kharkiv in “revenge” for battlefield defeats the invading force has suffered in recent days.
Kharkiv city mayor Ihor Terekhov said a strike had cut off electricity and water supplies to the city. There were also reports of blackouts in Dnipro, Poltava and other eastern cities, which could affect millions of civilians, but Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of President Volodomyr Zelenskiy’s office, later said the power had been restored in some regions.
Here’s a video showing some of the destruction.
Ukraine says Kharkiv power plant struck in ‘revenge’ for Russian defeats: video
You can read the full story here:
Updated at 06.40 BST
Successes in Ukraine have “significant implications” for Russian operation, UK says
The success of Ukrainian forces in expelling Russian troops from the Kharkiv region “has significant implications for Russia’s overall operational design,” according to the UK Ministry of Defence. United Kingdom, and for the morale of its soldiers on the ground.
“It is very likely that the majority of the force in Ukraine will be forced to prioritize emergency defensive actions,” he said in a post on Twitter on Monday morning.
“The already limited confidence of deployed troops in Russia’s senior military leadership is likely to deteriorate further.”
(1/6) Faced with Ukraine’s advances, Russia has likely ordered the withdrawal of its troops from all of the occupied Kharkiv Oblast west of the Oskil River.
— Ministry of Defense 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) September 12, 2022
Russia has probably ordered the withdrawal of its troops from the entire occupied region of Kharkiv Oblast west of the Oskil River, according to the UK Ministry of Defence.
Oblast
British military intelligence said in a post on Twitter on Monday morning that “isolated pockets of resistance remain in this sector, but since Wednesday, Ukraine has retaken territory at least twice the size of Greater London,” which would amount to to 3,000 km².
In southern Ukraine near Kherson, the Defense Ministry says Russia may be struggling to get enough reserves across the Dnipro River to the front line on the river’s west bank. “An improvised floating bridge that Russia started more than two weeks ago remains incomplete,” the Ministry of Defense says. “Ukrainian long-range artillery is probably hitting the Dnipro crossings so frequently that Russia cannot make repairs to damaged road bridges.”
Updated at 06.59 BST
– Do you still think you can scare us? Zelenskiy asks Russia
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has given a fierce response to Russian attacks in the Kharkiv region.
In a late-night message on Telegram, the Ukrainian president said that while the Kremlin was trying to deprive his people of “gas, electricity, water and food,” it would not succeed in defeating them.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has given a fierce response to the Russian attacks in Kharkiv. Photograph: AP
“You still think you can scare us, break us, make us concessions?” he asks in a poignant polemic worth publishing in full:
Even through the impenetrable darkness, Ukraine and the civilized world clearly see these terrorist acts.
Deliberate and cynical missile assaults on critical civilian infrastructure. No military installations. Kharkiv and Donetsk regions were cut off. In Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy there are partial problems with power supply.
Do you still think we are “one people”?
Do you still think you can scare us, break us, make us concessions?
Did you really not understand anything?
Don’t you understand who we are? What are we for? What are we talking about?
Read my lips:
No gas or no you? without you
Without light or without you? without you
Without water or without you? without you
Without food or without you? without you
Cold, hunger, darkness, and thirst are not so fearful and deadly to us as your “friendship and brotherhood.”
But history will put everything in its place. And we will be with gas, electricity, water and food… and WITHOUT you!
Updated at 07:00 BST
According to Agence France Presse, Western governments are mobilizing their arms makers to ramp up production and replenish stocks badly depleted by supplies from Ukraine’s six-month battle against the Russian invasion.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is organizing a meeting of senior national armaments directors from allied countries to make long-term plans to supply Ukraine and rebuild its own weapons stockpiles.
“They will discuss how our defense industrial bases can better equip Ukraine’s future forces with the capabilities they need,” he told a meeting at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany of the Ukraine Contact Group, 50 countries supporting the war effort.
A Himars rocket launcher of the type given to Ukraine by the US. Photo: Corey Dickstein/AP
Pentagon arms acquisition chief Bill LaPlante said the meeting will take place in Brussels on September 28. The goal was to determine “how we can continue to work together to increase the production of key capabilities and solve supply chain issues and increase the interoperability and interchangeability of our systems,” LaPlante told Pentagon reporters.
NATO has provided Ukraine with millions of dollars worth of military supplies since the start of the conflict, including Himars mobile missile systems.
The United States has pledged $15.2 billion worth of weapons, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, artillery and ammunition compatible with NATO’s armaments.
European Union countries agreed in July to spend a further €500m (£425m) to supply arms to Ukraine, bringing the bloc’s security support to €2.5bn since February .
The UK has pledged to spend more than a billion pounds arming Ukraine.
Updated at 07.03 BST
Hi, I’m Martin Farrer and I’ll be bringing you updates on the war in Ukraine for an hour or so.
The main development is the fallout from Ukraine’s swift counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region, which has seen it reclaim at least 3,000 square kilometers of territory east of the city.
Russia, which has not commented on the losses, responded by launching 11 cruise missiles against the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has accused Russia of “terrorist” attacks on infrastructure targets in Kharkiv, the country’s second city. The attacks came hours after Ukrainian forces retook thousands of square kilometers of territory east of the city as Russian forces abandoned their positions in the face of a counteroffensive. Zelenskiy said in a message on Telegram late Sunday that “Ukraine and the civilized world clearly see these terrorist acts” and that Russia was trying to deprive its people of “gas, electricity, water and food.” He added that Ukraine would prevail and appeared to address the Russian leadership, saying: “You still think you can scare us?”
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Russian forces launched a total of 11 missiles against eastern Ukraine on…