Ukraine has seized back more than 38 square miles of territory in its counter-offensive against Vladimir Putin’s forces, a senior Ukrainian military commander said on Thursday.
“We are ready to continue fighting to liberate our territory even with our bare hands,” Brigadier-General Oleksii Hromov told a media briefing.
He confirmed that in the early stages of the offensive, which Ukraine said had begun last week, seven settlements had been liberated in the eastern region of Donetsk and in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia.
The army has advanced by to 3 km (1.8 miles) near the village of Mala Tokmachka in the Zaporizhzhia sector and by up to 7 km (4.3 miles) near a village south of Velyka Novosilka in the Donetsk sector, military officials said.
The claims are similar to reports from US military experts.
Russia, which began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has not officially acknowledged the Ukrainian advances.
Each side says the other has suffered heavy losses since the counter-offensive started, and Moscow and Kyiv rarely comment on their own losses.
Meanwhile, the United States, Britain, the Netherlands and Denmark announced that they will partner to send air defence equipment including hundreds of missiles to Ukraine to help it fight Russian forces.
Delivery of the equipment has already begun and should be complete “within several weeks”, the joint statement provided by the British government said, ahead of a meeting of the US-led Ukraine Defence Contact Group in Brussels.
The UK’s Defence Secretary Ben Wallace stressed: “Working with our international partners we are able to provide vital air defence equipment, which will help Ukraine support offensive operations and protect critical national infrastructure.”
The Ministry of Defence added that hundreds of short and medium range air defence systems would be bought using the fund.
Delivery of the equipment has already begun and in expected to be complete within weeks, it added.
The package is made up largely of Soviet-era missiles which are being supplied to Ukraine for offensive operations and protect critical national infrastructure.
