4th village retaken in Donetsk: Kyiv

Kyiv, June 12

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Ukrainian military officials said on Monday their troops have retaken another southeastern village from Russian forces during the stepped-up counteroffensive operations as the war drags on into its 16th month.

Western analysts and military officials have cautioned that an effort to rid Ukraine of entrenched, powerfully armed and skilled Russian troops could take years, and the success of any counteroffensive is far from certain. Russian forces now control about one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory.

On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said “counteroffensive, defensive actions are taking place” without specifying whether it was an all-out counteroffensive, a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted that the counteroffensive had started and Ukrainian forces were taking “significant losses”.

The small villages Blahodatne, for example, had a pre-invasion population of about 1,000 people are located in the so-called “Vremivka salient”, a section of the front line where the Russian-controlled area protrudes into territory held by Ukraine.

Russian authorities have said their troops have largely held their ground along the more than 1,000-km arc of front line across southern and eastern Ukraine. The Russian Defence Ministry hasn’t confirmed the Russian retreat from the villages. AP