The long-awaited counter-offensive by Ukrainian troops appears to have begun in the southern Kherson region, with the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, saying: “If they want to survive, it’s time for the Russian army to flee.”
Ukrainian troops have breached Russian defenses in several front-line areas near the city of Kherson, a senior adviser to Zelenskiy said.
Oleksiy Arestovych said in a video interview that Ukrainian forces also bombed ferries in the Kherson region that Moscow is using to supply Russian-occupied territory on the west bank of the Dnieper River. But he warned Ukrainians not to expect a quick victory in the south.
In an update posted on his official Telegram account, Arestovych described the offensive as a “slow operation to crush the enemy.” “Of course, many would want a full-scale offensive with news of our military capturing a settlement within an hour,” he wrote. “But we don’t fight like that…funds are limited.”
Zelenskiy did not address the counteroffensive specifically during his speech on Monday evening, but said: “The occupiers should know this: we will push them out at the border. At our border, the line of which has not changed.”
Those who surrendered would be dealt with under the Geneva conventions, he said, adding: “If they don’t listen to me, they will deal with our defenders, who will not stop until they release everything that belongs to Ukraine.”
Ukrainian troops have retaken four villages near the city of Kherson after breaking through the front line in three places, CNN reported, citing a Ukrainian military source, with the main “target” being Kherson. The operation began with heavy shelling of Russian positions and the rear, forcing them to flee, the source said.
Sergiy Khlan, a local deputy and adviser to the Kherson regional governor, told Ukraine’s Pryamyi TV channel that a “powerful artillery attack was launched on Monday against enemy positions in … the entire territory of the occupied region from Kherson”.
“This is the announcement we have been waiting for since the spring: it is the beginning of the end of the occupation of the Kherson region,” he added. “What is happening now is a prepared and balanced start of a counteroffensive,” Khlan told Agence France-Presse.
Russia’s defense ministry acknowledged that a new Ukrainian offensive had been launched in the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, but said it had failed and Ukrainians had suffered heavy casualties, the RIA news agency reported. “The enemy’s offensive attempt failed miserably,” he said.
A Ukrainian rocket barrage left the Russian-occupied town of Nova Kakhovka, east of the city of Kherson, without water or electricity, officials of the Russian-appointed local authority later told the source.
Reports from the battlefield could not be independently verified.
Earlier on Monday, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern command, Nataliya Humenyuk, confirmed that the counteroffensive had begun in Kherson province after a video circulated online purportedly showing a soldier from the self-proclaimed Russian-led Donetsk republic saying that Ukrainian forces had broken through the first line of defense.
“Today we have started offensive actions in several directions, including in the Kherson region,” Humeniuk told a briefing, adding that Ukrainian forces had attacked more than 10 places in the past week and “undoubtedly weakened the “enemy”.
Humenyuk declined to elaborate, saying Russian forces in the south remained “quite powerful” and that the operation needed “quietness” as media attention could affect the results. His claims could not be independently corroborated.
He urged local residents to leave urgently or seek shelter.
Humenyuk said Russian forces were strong and that while morale was low among their ranks, “it was too early to relax.” Western and Ukrainian military intelligence noted a build-up of Russian troops and equipment this summer, suggesting Russia was preparing its own offensive.
However, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak warned politicians, experts and opinion leaders not to speculate on the progress of a military operation before the Ministry of Defense and the Ukrainian army issue official statements.
“I understand our desires and dreams… But war is not ‘content’. We filter the information and work professionally out of respect for our defenders,” he wrote on Telegram.
Zelenskiy agreed: “Does anyone want to know what our plans are? You’re not going to hear details from anyone really responsible. Because that’s war. And that’s what it is during war.”