The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has confirmed that counteroffensive actions against invading Russian forces have been launched in his country, however declining to divulge additional details.
The Ukrainian leader made this known on Saturday evening while speaking at a news conference in Kyiv, while standing alongside visiting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
He was responding to a question about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statement a day earlier that Ukraine’s counteroffensive had started and that Ukrainian forces were taking ‘significant losses’.
According to Zelenskyy, ‘counteroffensive, defensive actions are taking place in Ukraine. I will not speak about which stage or phase they are in.’
‘I am in touch with our commanders of different directions every day,’ he added, citing the names of five of Ukraine’s top military leaders.
‘Everyone is positive. Pass this on to Putin.’
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Top Ukrainian authorities have stopped short of announcing a full-blown counteroffensive was underway, though some Western analysts have said fiercer fighting and reported use of reserve troops suggests it was.
In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy provided few details while urging troops to keep fighting.
‘Thank you to all those who holds their positions and those who advance,’ he said, citing the eastern and southern fronts, where fighting is heaviest.
Ukraine’s general staff said its forces had repelled enemy attacks around Bakhmut and Maryinka, sites of heavy clashes in the east. Russian forces, it said, ‘continue to suffer heavy losses which they are trying to conceal’.
Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar made it plain on Telegram that the military would issue no statements until battlefield positions became clear.
‘Ask yourself this… am I prepared to receive information about the liberation of this or that town not when our troops enter it, but once they establish a stronghold?’ she wrote.
Ukraine has said for months it plans to conduct a major counter-offensive to recapture land occupied by Russia in the south and east. But it is enforcing strict operational silence for now and has denied it has begun the main operation.
With scant independent reporting from the front lines, it has been difficult to assess the state of the fighting.