Ukraine push liberates 150,000 from Russian occupation

Some 150,000 Ukrainians have been freed from Russian occupation during a recent counteroffensive in the country’s northeast, Ukraine announced today, after President Zelensky said prisoners, “saboteurs” and alleged collaborators were being rounded up.

The Ukrainian leader said that about 3,100 sq miles (8,000 sq km) in the northeastern region of Kharkiv that was previously occupied by Russian forces had now been liberated — an area nearly as large as North Yorkshire, or equivalent of Crete.

Zelensky this morning visited the newly recaptured town of Izium, a key supply hub in the northeastern Kharkiv region, a Ukrainian military brigade said, following the departure of Russian troops a few days ago.

 “The president of Ukraine thanked the soldiers for liberating Ukrainian lands, and solemnly raised the Ukrainian flag over the city council,” the 25th Separate Airborne Sicheslav Brigade said in a statement on its Facebook page.

The post included photographs of the president, the deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar and senior military personnel at the ceremony.

Zelensky said that Ukrainian forces were carrying out “stabilisation measures” across the recaptured territory, including rounding up those who were complicit in the invasion. “Remnants of occupiers and sabotage groups are being detected, collaborators are being detained and full security is being restored,” he said in his evening address late on Tuesday.

Russia has acknowledged that it recently withdrew troops from areas in the northeastern region of Kharkiv close to its border with Ukraine.

The Kremlin’s troops have also been pulling out of the southern city of Melitopol, according to the deposed former mayor, Ivan Fedorov. The second largest city in the southern region of Zaporizhzhya has been occupied since early March. Recapturing it would allow Kyiv to disrupt Kremlin supply lines between the south and the eastern Donbas region, the two remaining areas where Russian-backed forces hold territory.

The signs of Russia’s frantic and chaotic withdrawal as the Ukrainian army closed in could be seen across the Kharkiv region. In the newly freed village of Chkalovske, Svitlana Honchar said some Russians appeared to have been left behind in the hasty retreat. “They were trying to catch up,” she said. “They left like the wind. They were fleeing by any means they could.”

Maliar said Kyiv was trying to convince more Russian soldiers to give up, launching shells filled with flyers ahead of their advance. “Russians use you as cannon fodder. Your life doesn’t mean anything for them. You don’t need this war. Surrender to [the] armed forces of Ukraine,” the flyers read.

Fedorov wrote on Telegram, the messaging platform, that Russian troops were heading towards Crimea, which was annexed by Moscow in 2014. He said columns of military equipment were reported at a checkpoint in Chonhar, a village marking the boundary between the Crimean peninsula and the Ukrainian mainland.

The Ukrainian advance has pushed up to the Russian border, retaking the town of Vovchansk in the northeast just two miles from Russia that was seized on the first day of the war.

Ukraine has set its sights on freeing all occupied territory after driving Russian forces back in a rapid counter-offensive in the northeast, a goal President Biden said would be “a long haul” in achieving. Asked whether Ukraine had reached a turning point in the seven-month war, Biden said it was hard to tell. “It’s clear the Ukrainians have made significant progress. But I think it’s going to be a long haul.”

Despite officials releasing footage showing Ukrainian forces burning Russian flags and inspecting abandoned tanks, it is still not yet clear if the Ukrainian blitz could signal a turning point in the nearly seven-month-old war.

Washington has been careful not to declare a premature victory. However, the US is preparing another package of aid to Ukraine, according to John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, which cited a “shift of momentum” in the conflict.

Faced with Moscow’s largest defeat since its failed attempt to capture Kyiv in the early days of the war, a spokesman for the Russian defence ministry, Igor Konashenkov, said troops were hitting back with “massive strikes” in all sectors. But there were no immediate reports of an uptick in Russian attacks.

However, it is highly likely Russia has deployed Iranian drones (UAV) in Ukraine for the first time, according to the UK Ministry of Defence. “On 13 September 2022, Ukrainian officials reported that their forces had shot down a Shahed-136 UAV near Kupiansk, in the area of Ukraine’s successful ongoing offensive,” the MoD said in a new intelligence report today.

The loss of the long-range kamikaze drone close to the front lines suggests Russia may be using them to conduct tactical strikes rather than against more strategic targets deeper into Ukrainian territory, the MoD added. Similar Iranian drones were used in the attack on the oil tanker, MT Mercer Street, in July 2021, which killed two people.

The MoD also suggested Russia is “almost certainly increasingly sourcing weaponry from other heavily sanctioned states like Iran and North Korea as its own stocks dwindle”.