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| Photo Credit: AP. |
KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian troops retook a wide swath of territory from Russia on Monday, pushing all the way back to the northeastern border in some places, and claimed to have captured many Russian soldiers as part of a lightning advance that forced Moscow to make a hasty retreat.
A spokesman
for Ukrainian military intelligence said Russian troops were surrendering en
masse as “they understand the hopelessness of their situation.” A Ukrainian
presidential adviser said there were so many POWs that the country was running
out of space to accommodate them.
As
blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flags fluttered over newly liberated towns, the
Ukrainian military said it had freed more than 20 settlements in 24 hours. In
recent days, Kyiv’s forces have captured territory at least twice the size of
greater London, according to the British Defense Ministry.
After months
of little discernible movement on the battlefield, the momentum has lifted
Ukrainian morale and provoked rare public criticism of Russian President
Vladimir Putin’s war.
“In some
areas of the front, our defenders reached the state border with the Russian
Federation,” said Oleh Syniehubov, governor of the northeastern Kharkiv region.
Over the weekend, the Russian Defense Ministry said troops would be pulled from
two areas in that region to regroup in the eastern region of Donetsk.
There were
reports of chaos as Russian troops pulled out.
“The
Russians were here in the morning. Then at noon, they suddenly started shouting
wildly and began to run away, charging off in tanks and armored vehicles,”
Dmytro Hrushchenko, a resident of recently liberated Zaliznychne, a small town
near the eastern front line, told Sky News.
Video taken
by the Ukrainian military showed soldiers raising the Ukrainian flag over
battle-damaged buildings. In one scene, a fighter wiped his boots on a Russian
flag on the ground. Other videos showed Ukrainians inspecting the wreckage of
Russian military vehicles, including tanks.
Efforts to
disarm land mines were underway in the recaptured areas, along with a search
for any remaining Russian troops, Ukrainian military officials said.
It was not
yet clear if the Ukrainian blitz could signal a turning point in the war.
Momentum has switched back and forth before, but rarely with such a big and
sudden swing.
Ukrainian
presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich did not specify the number of Russian
prisoners but said the POWs would be exchanged for Ukrainian service members
held by Moscow. Military intelligence spokesman Andrey Yusov said the captured
troops included “significant” numbers of Russian officers.
Ukraine’s
deputy interior minister accused fleeing Russian forces of burning official
documents and concealing bodies in an attempt to cover up rights violations in
the areas they controlled until last week
The mood was
jubilant across the country.
In Kharkiv,
authorities hailed that power and water had been restored to about 80% of the
region’s population following Russian attacks on infrastructure that knocked
out electricity in many places across Ukraine.
“You are
heroes!!!” Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram, referring to crews
who restored utilities in Ukraine’s second-biggest city. “Thanks to everyone
who did everything possible on this most difficult night for Kharkiv to
normalize the life of the city as soon as possible.”
The buoyant
mood was also captured by a defiant President Volodymyr Zelenskyy late Sunday
on social media.
“Do you
still think you can intimidate, break us, force us to make concessions?”
Zelenskyy asked. “Cold, hunger, darkness and thirst for us are not as scary and
deadly as your ‘friendship’ and brotherhood.’”
In the end,
he exclaimed: “We will be with gas, lights, water and food … and WITHOUT you!”
Meanwhile,
in Russia, there were some signs of disarray as Russian military bloggers and
patriotic commentators chastised the Kremlin for failing to mobilize more
forces and take stronger action against Ukraine.
Russia has
continuously stopped short of calling its invasion a war, instead describing it
as a “special military operation” and relying on on a limited contingent of
volunteers instead of a mass mobilization that could spur civil discontent and
protest.
Ramzan
Kadyrov, the Moscow-backed leader of the Russian region of Chechnya, publicly
criticized the Russian Defense Ministry for what he called “mistakes” that made
the Ukrainian blitz possible.
Even more
notable, such criticism seeped onto state-controlled Russian TV.
“People who
convinced President Putin that the operation will be fast and effective ...
these people really set up all of us,” Boris Nadezhdin, a former parliament
member, said on a talk show on NTV television. “We’re now at the point where we
have to understand that it’s absolutely impossible to defeat Ukraine using
these resources and colonial war methods.”
Pro-Kremlin
separatists reported that Ukrainian troops were approaching the town of Lyman,
a rail hub captured by Russia in late May that offers access to bridges over the
nearby Siversky Donets river.
Denis
Pushilin, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, acknowledged
that the situation was “difficult.”
Even amid
Ukraine’s ebullience, the casualties kept mounting. Ukraine’s presidential
office said Monday that at least four civilians were killed and 11 others
wounded in a series of Russian attacks in nine regions of the country. The U.N.
Human Rights Office said last week that 5,767 civilians have been killed so
far.
Strikes in
Kharkiv continued during daylight Monday when an administrative facility in the
center of the city was hit by a missile, setting part of it on fire and killing
one person, regional Police Chief Volodymyr Tymoahko said. Teams of
firefighters battled flames licking the roof from the top floor as smoke
billowed above the area.
In a
reminder of the war’s toll, a council member in Izium — one of the areas where
Russia said it has withdrawn troops — accused those forces of killing civilians
and committing other atrocities.
Maksym
Strelnikov told reporters Monday in an online briefing that hundreds of people
had died during the fighting and after Russia seized the town in March.
Many died
from shelling and could not get a proper burial, he said. His claims could not
be immediately verified, but similar scenes have played out in other places
captured by Russian forces.
The
Ukrainian military also claimed to have found more evidence of human rights
violations by Russian occupiers. It did not elaborate.
Izium was a
major base for Russian forces in the Kharkiv region. The first Ukrainian flag
was raised over the city on Saturday, according to Strelnikov. Residents, some
wrapped in the country’s flag, greeted Ukrainian forces and offered them food.
Ukraine said
the Russians continued shelling Nikopol across the Dnieper River from the
Zaporizhzhia power plant, damaging several buildings there and leaving Europe’s
largest nuclear facility in a precarious position. The last operational reactor
in that plant has been shut down in a bid to prevent a radiation disaster as
fighting raged nearby.
The
Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Monday that Kyiv “will
likely increasingly dictate the location and nature of the major fighting.”
The British
Defense Ministry said the retreat would likely further deteriorate the trust
Russian forces have in their commanders and put Moscow’s troops on the back
foot.
Arhirova
reported from Kyiv.
Follow AP war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine