Ukrainian forces are continuing their counteroffensive operations at several points along the front line in the south and east of the country, a senior defense official has said, and are engaged in several "key battles" around the devastated city of Bakhmut.
Hanna Maliar, Ukraine's deputy defense minister, told the Ukrainian Military Media Center on Monday that Kyiv's forces had liberated almost 75 square miles of territory on the southern front close to the city of Zaporizhzhia since the counteroffensive began in early June. This includes around 5 square miles liberated in the past week, Maliar added.
Ukrainian officials, commanders and President Volodymyr Zelensky have urged patience from Kyiv's Western partners as their troops press the long-awaited counteroffensive, in which thousands of NATO-trained Ukrainians armed with heavy NATO weaponry are involved.
"Ukrainian troops continue to conduct offensive operations on several front areas towards Melitopol and Berdiansk," Maliar reported, referring to the southern front where Ukrainian forces hope to sever the Russian-occupied land corridor running from the Dnieper River—called the Dnipro in Ukrainian—all the way to Russia's western border.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian units are pushing their assault around the edges of Bakhmut, the eastern Donetsk city destroyed and occupied in Russia's bloody monthslong winter offensive. Kyiv's forces have freed around 13 square miles of occupied territory in the area since the Ukrainian operation began in early June, Maliar said, around 1.5 square mile of which was secured in the past week.
"Key battles continue in the areas of Klishchiivka, Andriivka and Kurdiumivka," Maliar said, referring to three hot spots of fighting in the Bakhmut area, where Ukrainian troops have been trying to outmaneuver the Russian forces inside the city by attacking its northern and southern flanks.
Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry by email to request comment.
Ukrainian progress has been relatively slow, with attacking units facing multiple lines of heavily mined Russian defensive positions. Casualties on both sides are thought to be high, though neither Kyiv nor Moscow releases such figures.
Zelensky has defended the gradual nature of the counteroffensive, saying he will not risk the lives of soldiers unnecessarily. The president this weekend told CNN that the operation had been delayed due to a lack of weapons and munitions. Kyiv's forces, he said, still do not have sufficient supplies.
"We did have plans to start it in spring," Zelensky said. "But we didn't, because, frankly, we had not enough munitions and armaments and not enough brigades properly trained in these weapons, still more that the training missions were held outside Ukraine. But, still, we started. And this is important.
"And because we started it a bit later on, it can be said, and it will be shared truth understood by all the experts that it provided Russia with time to mine all our lands and build several lines of defense. And, definitely, they had even more time than they needed. Because of that, they built more of those lines."
"And, really, they had a lot of mines in our fields. Because of that, [there was] a slower pace of our counteroffensive actions," Zelensky said. "We didn't want to lose our people, our personnel. And our servicemen didn't want to lose equipment because of that."
"Yes, I do understand that it's always better to see victory come sooner. This is what we also want. But the question is the price...of this victory. So, let us not throw people under tanks literally. Let us plan our counteroffensive as our analysts, our intelligence suggests. And some of our residential areas have been liberated already. So, I do believe in our victory."
