- Ukraine says its forces capture village near Lysychansk
- The separatist leader calls for a referendum to join Russia
- “The occupiers are clearly panicking,” Zelenskiy
- Russia moves some submarines from the Black Sea, the UK
IZIUM, Ukraine, Sept 20 (Reuters) – Ukraine said its troops have moved further east into territory recently abandoned by Russia, paving the way for a possible assault on Moscow’s occupation forces in the Donbas region as Kyiv seeks more Western weapons.
“The occupiers are clearly panicking,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a televised address on Monday afternoon, adding that he was now focused on “speed” in the liberated areas.
“The speed at which our troops are moving. The speed in restoring normal life,” Zelenskiy said.
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The Ukrainian leader also hinted he would use a video address to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday to call on countries to speed up arms and aid deliveries.
“We are doing everything possible to ensure that Ukraine’s needs are met at all levels: defense, financial, economic, diplomatic,” Zelenskiy said.
Ukraine’s armed forces had regained full control of the village of Bilohorivka and were preparing to retake all of Luhansk province from Russian occupiers, provincial governor Serhiy Gaidai said. The village is just 10 km (6 miles) west of the city of Lysychansk, which fell to the Russians after weeks of heavy fighting in July.
“There will be a fight for every centimeter,” Gaidai wrote on Telegram. “The enemy is preparing their defense. So we won’t just walk in.”
Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk province comprise the industrialized eastern Donbas region, which Moscow says it intends to take as the main target of what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Ukrainian troops have started moving into Luhansk since they pushed Russian forces out of the northeastern Kharkiv province in a lightning counter-offensive this month.
In a sign of nervousness by a Moscow-backed administration in the Donbass over the success of Ukraine’s recent offensive, its leader called for urgent referendums on the region becoming part of Russia.
Denis Pushilin, head of the Moscow-based separatist administration in Donetsk, called on his fellow separatist leader in Luhansk to join efforts to prepare a referendum to join Russia. Read more
Ukraine’s general staff said fighting in the past 24 hours had been confined to the Donetsk region and that Russian attacks had been repelled near the settlements of Mayorsk, Vesele, Kurdyumivka and Novomykhailivka.
In the south, where another Ukrainian counteroffensive has progressed more slowly, Ukraine’s armed forces said they had sunk a barge carrying Russian troops and equipment across a river near Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region.
“Attempts to build a passage could not withstand the fire of Ukrainian forces and were stopped. The barge … became an addition to the underwater force of the occupiers,” the army said in a statement to Facebook.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports from either side.
Ukraine’s increased long-range strike capability had likely forced Russia’s Black Sea Fleet to move some of its submarines from the Crimean port of Sevastopol to Novorossiysk in southern Russia’s Krasnodor Krai. the British military said on Tuesday. Read more
Ukrainian servicemen ride with an armored personnel carrier (APC) and a tank as Russia’s offensive continues in Ukraine near the city of Izium, recently liberated by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, September 19, 2022. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
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GRIM GRAVES
Ukraine is still assessing what happened in areas that were under Russian control for months before a rout of Russian troops dramatically changed the dynamics of the war earlier this month.
In a large makeshift cemetery in the forest near the recaptured city of Izium, Ukrainian forensic experts have so far unearthed 146 bodies buried without coffins, Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synehubov said on Monday. About 450 graves have been found at the site, Zelenskiy said read more
Huddled in groups under the trees, workers used shovels to exhume the partially decomposed bodies, some of which locals say had been on the city streets long after they died before being buried.
The government has not yet said how most of the people died, although officials say dozens were killed in the bombing of an apartment building, and there are indications that others were killed by shrapnel.
According to preliminary examinations, four showed signs of torture, with their hands tied behind their backs, or in one case with a rope tied around their necks, Serhiy Bolvinov, head of the investigative police in the region of Kharkiv, in the cemetery.
Bolvinov said the vast majority of the bodies appeared to be civilians. Locals have been identifying their dead by matching the names to the numbers on the fragile wooden crosses that mark the graves. Read more
“Soldiers’ hands were tied, there were signs of torture on civilians,” Bolvinov said. Ukraine says 17 soldiers were in a mass grave at the site. Read more
Reuters was unable to substantiate the Ukrainian torture allegations.
The Kremlin denied on Monday that Russia was to blame for the atrocities Ukraine says it has uncovered in the recaptured territory.
“It is a lie and of course we will defend the truth in this story,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, comparing the allegations to pre-war incidents in which Russia claimed without evidence that atrocities were carried out by Ukrainians .
ALARM ON THE NUCLEAR POWER PLANT
Ukraine on Monday accused Russian forces of shelling near the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant in the southern Mykolaiv region.
An explosion occurred 300 meters away from the reactors and damaged power plant buildings shortly after midnight on Monday, Ukraine’s nuclear power operator Energoatom said in a statement.
The reactors were not damaged and no personnel were injured, he said, releasing photographs showing a huge crater that was caused by the explosion.
“Russia endangers the whole world. We must stop it before it’s too late,” Zelenskiy said in a post on social media.
The attacks will add to global concerns about the potential for a nuclear disaster, already heightened by fighting around another nuclear plant in the south, Zaporizhzhia, captured by Russian forces in March.
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Reuters bureau reports; Written by Rami Ayyub and Michael Perry; Editing by Stephen Coates
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