Ukraine has said its troops have regained more ground along eastern and southern fronts in what the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, described as progress in a “difficult” week for Kyiv’s counteroffensive against Russian forces.
The deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, also noted a surge in fighting around the shattered eastern city of Bakhmut, captured by Russian forces in May after 10 months of battles.
“Last week was difficult on the frontline. But we are making progress,” Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
“We are moving forward, step by step! I thank everyone who is defending Ukraine, everyone who is leading this war to Ukraine’s victory!”
In an initial report on Telegram on Monday, Maliar said the Ukrainian military took back 37.4 sq km (14.4 sq miles) of territory in heavy fighting in the past week.
She said Russian forces were attacking near Lyman, in the northern Donetsk region and near Avdiivka and Mariinka, long-contested cities farther south – to the west of Bakhmut.
In a later report, Maliar said fighting near Bakhmut had intensified and “a struggle is under way to seize the initiative.
“Today, the enemy attempted to advance in this sector. And our forces achieved a measure of success,” she wrote. “The situation is changing rapidly and control over positions can be lost and regained twice within a day.”
Russian forces, she said, were setting up three defensive lines on certain fronts. Ukrainian forces had advanced near a village south of Bakhmut, while fighting was continuing to the north and the city had experienced heavy exchanges of fire.
Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, in charge of Ukraine’s land forces, reported advances of troops on the fringes of Bakhmut and “effective destruction of Russians”.
Moscow has spent months consolidating its defensive lines, some of which now run to a depth of 30km.
“There’s a considerable number of Russians in Ukraine. There are considerable defensive obstacles,” Adm Rob Bauer, the chair of Nato’s military committee told journalists in Brussels on Monday.
“The counteroffensive, it is difficult. People should never think that this is an easy walkover.”
Ukrainian military chiefs were right to be “cautious” probing for weaknesses in the Russian lines, as they risk losing a lot of forces in full-on assaults, Bauer said.
Earlier in the day, Maliar said Ukraine had reclaimed 9 sq km over the past week along the eastern front “as a result of improving the operational (tactical) position and aligning the frontline”.
In the south, Ukraine had regained 28.4 sq km of territory, bringing the total area of recaptured territory along that front to 158.4 sq km.
To further complicate the task for Kyiv, the Russians have recently attacked several places in the Donbas, which Moscow claimed to have annexed last year. Conquering the region remains Moscow’s declared main aim of the war.
According to Kyiv, Russian forces are also on the offensive, and in recent days launched new assaults towards Svatove in the eastern Luhansk region, as well as near Avdiivka, Mariinka and Lyman.
Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said on Monday that a brief mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group last month had not affected Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.
“The provocation did not affect the actions of army groups (involved in the operation),” he told a ministry meeting.
