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| Photo Credit: AP. |
IZIUM, Ukraine (AP) — Hand on heart, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy watched his country’s flag rise Wednesday above the recaptured city of Izium, making a rare foray outside the capital that highlights Moscow’s embarrassing retreat from a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Russian
forces left the war-scarred city last week as Kyiv’s soldiers pressed a
stunning advance that has reclaimed large swaths of territory in Ukraine’s
northeastern Kharkiv region.
As Zelenskyy
looked on and sang the national anthem, the Ukrainian flag was raised in front
of the burned-out city hall. After almost six months under Russian occupation,
Izium was left largely devastated, with apartment buildings blackened by fire
and pockmarked by artillery strikes.
A gaping
hole and piles of rubble stood where one building had collapsed.
“The view is
very shocking, but it is not shocking for me,” Zelenskyy told journalists,
“because we began to see the same pictures from Bucha, from the first
de-occupied territories … the same destroyed buildings, killed people.”
Bucha is a
small city on Kyiv’s outskirts from which Russian forces withdrew in March. In
the aftermath, Ukrainian authorities discovered the bodies of hundreds of
civilians dumped in streets, yards and mass graves. Many bore signs of torture.
Prosecutors
said they so far have found six bodies with traces of torture in recently
retaken Kharkiv region villages. The head of the Kharkiv prosecutor’s office,
Oleksandr Filchakov, said bodies were found in Hrakove and Zaliznyche, villages
around 60 kilometers (35 miles) southeast of Kharkiv city.
“We have a
terrible picture of what the occupiers did. ... Such cities as Balakliia,
Izium, are standing in the same row as Bucha, Borodyanka, Irpin,” said Ukrainian
Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin, listing places where the Ukrainians have
alleged Russian forces committed atrocities.
Local
authorities have made similar claims in other areas Russia previously held, but
it was not immediately possible to verify their information. They have not yet
provided evidence of potential atrocities on the scale described in Bucha,
where the number and conditions of civilian casualties prompted international
demands for Russian officials to face war crime charges.
Moscow’s
recent rout in northeast Ukraine was its largest military defeat since Russian
troops withdrew from the Kyiv area months ago. On the northern outskirts of
Izium, the remains of Russian tanks and vehicles lay shattered along a road.
As Zelenskyy
visited, his forces pressed their counteroffensive, de-mined retaken ground and
investigated possible war crimes. He said “life comes back” as Ukrainian
soldiers return to previously occupied villages.
The
Ukrainian governor of the eastern Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, said Ukrainian
forces were preparing to retake the region, which borders the Kharkiv region
and was has been mostly under Russian control since July. Mobile internet
service was down, and intense shelling of Ukrainian forces continued, according
to Haidai.
He told The
Associated Press that Ukrainian guerrilla forces were flying Ukrainian flags in
the cities of Svatove and Starobilsk.
But in
Kreminna, another city where Ukrainians raised their flag, Russians returned Wednesday
and “tore down the (Ukrainian) flags and are demonstrably showing that they’re
there,” Haidai said.
A separatist
military leader confirmed the Ukrainian advance on the Luhansk region. Andrei
Marochko, a local militia officer, said on Russian TV that the situation was
“really difficult.”
“In some
places, the contact line has come very close to the borders of the Luhansk
People’s Republic,” Marochko said, referring to the independent state the
separatists declared eight years ago.
The
counteroffensive has left more weapons in Ukrainian hands.
Russian
forces likely left behind dozens of tanks, armored personnel carriers and other
heavy weaponry as they fled Ukraine’s advance in the east, a Ukrainian think
tank said Wednesday.
The Center
for Defense Strategies said one Russian unit fleeing the Izium area left behind
more than three dozen T-80 tanks and about as many infantry fighting vehicles.
Another unit left 47 tanks and 27 armored vehicles.
The center
said Russian forces tried to destroy some of the abandoned vehicles through
artillery strikes as they fell back. Typically, armed forces ruin equipment
left behind so their opponent can’t use it.
However, the
chaos of the Russian withdrawal apparently forced them to abandon untouched
ammunition and weapons.
With the
recent Ukrainian gains, a new front line has emerged along the Oskil River,
which largely traces the eastern edge of the Kharkiv region, a Washington-based
think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, said Wednesday.
“Russian
troops are unlikely to be strong enough to prevent further Ukrainian advances
along the entire Oskil River because they do not appear to be receiving
reinforcements, and Ukrainian troops will likely be able to exploit this
weakness to resume the counteroffensive across the Oskil if they choose,” the
institute said.
In other
areas, Russia continued its attacks, causing more casualties in a war that has
dragged on for nearly seven months.
Russian
shelling of seven Ukrainian regions over the past 24 hours killed at least
seven civilians and wounded 22, Ukraine’s presidential office reported
Wednesday morning.
Two people
were killed and three wounded after Russia attacked Mykolaiv with S-300
missiles overnight, said regional governor Vitaliy Kim. Settlements near the
front line in Mykolaiv region remain under fire.
The Nikopol
area, across a river from the shut down Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, was
shelled three times during the night, with no injuries were immediately
reported, regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko said.
Fighting
also raged in the eastern Donetsk region, where shelling killed five civilians
and wounded 16. Together, Luhansk and Donetsk make up the Donbas, an industrial
area that Moscow set out to capture following an unsuccessful attempt to invade
Kyiv.
Russian
troops are targeting critical infrastructure. Eight cruise missiles aimed at
the water supply system hit Kryvyi Rih, a city 150 kms (93 miles) southwest of
Dnipro. Deputy Head of President’s office Kyrylo Tymoshenko reported on his
Telegram channel.
U.S.
President Joe Biden observed Wednesday that Ukrainian forces have made
“significant progress” in recent days but said, “I think it’s going to be a
long haul.”
While
criticism of the invasion seems to be increasing in Russia, German Chancellor
Olaf Scholz said after a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin,
“Unfortunately, I cannot tell you that the realization has grown over there by
now that this was a mistake to start this war.”
Western
military and economic support has allowed Ukraine to keep fighting since Russia
invaded on Feb. 24, and the Ukrainian government received more assistance
Wednesday.
An international
group of creditors, including the U.S., finalized a deal to suspend Ukraine’s
debt service through the end of 2023, helping the country ease liquidity
pressures and increase social, health and economic spending.
Arhirova
reported from Kyiva. Associated Press journalist Jon Gambrell in Kyiv
contributed.
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