Ukraine’s National Guard has reported achieving counteroffensive success in the Melitopol direction, RBC Ukraine cites the agency.
Mykola Urshalovych, a representative of the National Guard, says the unit’s soldiers “achieved tactical success, they are gaining a foothold in the liberated confines and are into reconnaissance in further directions”.
Urshalovych also says the Russian military “continues to be actively defending and delivering indiscriminate strikes against the settlements of the Kherson region”.
The US believes that the main thrust of Ukraine’s counteroffensive is now underway, as per The New York Times citing anonymous officials. The enlarged Ukrainian force will try to advance south through Russia’s minefields and other fortifications toward Tokmak, and, if successful, on to Melitopol. Their goal is to sever the so-called land bridge between Russian-occupied Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula, or at least advance far enough to put the strategically important peninsula within range of Ukrainian artillery.
The new operation, if successful, could take one to three weeks, Ukrainian officials have told officials in Washington. The US-based Institute for the Study of War also reckons a new stage of Ukraine’s counteroffensive has begun.
