Some of the Ukrainian forces of Ukraine have announced on Monday that their lightning counter-offensive have taken back some more ground in the past 24 hours, as Russia had replied with some retaliatory strikes on some of the recaptured ground which had been taken recently.
The territorial shifts had also been one of Russia’s biggest reversals since its forces had been turned back from Kyiv in the earliest days of the nearly seven months of fighting, yet Moscow had signalled that it was no closer to agreeing a negotiated peace.
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“Ukraine has turned the tide in its favour, but the current counter-offensive will not end the war,” US think tank Institute for the Study of War tweeted.
Moscow had also recently announced air, rocket and artillery attacks on some of the reclaimed areas in the Kharkiv region on Monday, a day after Kyiv had revealed that some of the Russian strikes on electricity infrastructure had also caused power failures.
The retaliatory fire had also come as Ukraine had revealed that some of the forces had recaptured more than 20 additional settlements, claiming “Russian troops are hastily abandoning their positions and fleeing”. Kyiv had already announced the recapture of the strategic city of Izyum in the country’s east, one of a series of victories claimed against Russia’s army. Ukraine said on Monday its forces recaptured 500 square kilometres (193 square miles) in the southern Kherson region which were in addition to the huge gains in the east over the weekend.
Moscow had finally conceded on having lost some of their captured territory, which experts saw as a serious blow to its war ambitions, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saw no prospects for negotiations.
“The special military operation continues and will continue until the objectives that were originally set are achieved,” he added, using Russia’s terminology for the internationally condemned war.
Eastern parts of Ukraine were hit with widespread electricity blackouts on Sunday evening, which President Volodymyr Zelensky said deliberately hit civilian infrastructure. He blamed “Russian terrorists”.
“A total blackout in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, a partial one in the Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy regions,” Zelensky said in a statement on social media.
“No military facilities,” he added. “The goal is to deprive people of light and heat.”
Local Ukrainian authorities pointed to Russian strikes on their power infrastructure, but some districts reported later that power had been restored.