On Friday night, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the people of Ukraine through television. He reported that the units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces had liberated 30 communities during the Kharkiv counter-offensive operation. Also, yesterday night, the US referred to the Ukrainian army’s military operations in the south as a counter-offensive for the first time.
Zelenskyy said, “I now want to appeal once again to some bloggers who are occasionally in a hurry to report the results of some active actions of our soldiers at the front; please do not rush the messages, do not complicate the task of our army and please do not announce specific details about the defence operation before the official representatives of our country say them”.
Vitaliy Ganchev, a Moscow-installed regional official, said, “Near the town of Balakliia, which Ukraine claimed it had retaken, a fierce battle is still going on. Russia is dispatching reinforcements to the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine, where Kyiv’s forces claimed to retake as part of a broader counter-offensive”.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, ” The war is entering its crucial state after Ukraine launched a counter-offensive. Encouraging Western support for Kyiv still remains strong in the face of the energy crisis and the rising expense of life”. Ukrainian forces managed to block Russian attacks in Donbas, struck beyond Russian lines, and reclaimed land”.
Due to continuous heavy attacks by the Ukrainian armed forces, the Russian government in the Kharkiv region ordered locals to leave their homes in the conflict zone. Russian sources claim that reinforcements have been sent to the conflict zone.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the risk to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station is rising due to the continued bombing from both sides, for which Moscow and Kiev trade accusations. The regional Russian government in Zaporizhzhia claimed that the Ukrainian government had attempted to shut down the plant and cut off electricity unilaterally.