Russia says it has advanced nearly 2 miles in northeast Ukraine

Russian officials claimed their troops have advanced nearly two miles into northeast Ukraine in an attempt to re-conquer liberated territories following a massive drone and missile attack over the weekend.

“Over the past three days, the advance of Russian troops… amounted to 11 kilometers along the front and more than three kilometers deep into the enemy’s defense,” the Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement Monday.

The advancement came near Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, which was liberated last September and was the recent target of waves of about 70 Russian drones and missiles on Sunday.

Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, said in an address Monday that the free city of Kupyansk is seeing the most intense fighting in the war, with Russia pushing harder than ever to “return the territories they lost.”

“The most severe hostilities were taking place in Kupyansk…where the Russian troops were trying to bridge through our defense,” she said. “It was unsuccessful. Nonetheless, hostilities were extremely difficult.” 

Maliar said that Russia has launched about 250 missiles this past week, with strikes allegedly hitting civilian buildings and injuring women and children.

Maliar added that while Russia appears desperate to advance further into Ukraine, her troops have foiled additional missions to encroach along the northeast border, noting that Ukraine’s air force has taken out 68 of the Kremlin’s deployed drones.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that 178 Russian drones were launched last week alone, but his nation’s aerial counterattacks have proven to be a thorn in the Kremlin’s strategy.

“Here, in our skies, we can prove that terror is losing,” Zelenskyy said in his latest briefing. “Ukraine can win this battle, and our sky shield will eventually guarantee security for the whole of Europe.”

The Ukrainian president’s reassurance came after Russia hit a blood transfusion center in Kharkiv on Sunday as part of the Kremlin’s promised retaliation when one of its tankers was hit by a Kyiv drone strapped with nearly 1,000 pounds of TNT.

The weekend bombings and counterattack killed at least six people, including a 58-year old woman in Kharkiv and an 80-year-old in the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk, local officials said.

Ukrainian officials added that at least three rounds of bombings also hit the Starokostiantyniv area and an aircraft engine manufacturing building in Zaporizhzhia.

Amid the counterattacks, Ukrainian military officials confirmed it successfully struck two bridges connecting the annexed Crimea to Russian-occupied cities in southern Ukraine. 

The Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a statement that “two key routes of communication” for the Kremlin were taken out, including the Chonhar bridge in the Kherson region and a smaller bridge connecting to Henichesk.