Images and videos have surfaced depicting troops standing triumphantly atop Russian flags in the freed city of Balakliia, while others are shown discovering the charred remains of enemy tanks.
The photographs were captured as rapidly advancing Ukrainian forces closed in on the main railway supporting Moscow’s forces in the east on Friday, following the stunning fall of a sector of the Russian front line, which produced the most dramatic shift in the war’s momentum since its earliest days.
President Volodymyr Zelensky stated in a televised address that Ukrainian military have recaptured more than 1,000 square kilometers of terrain in the east and south in the past week alone.
Zelensky published a video in which Ukrainian military claimed to have conquered the eastern town of Balakliia, which is along a length of the front south of Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine.
In one city footage, a Ukrainian flag can be seen flying from a rooftop. Three Ukrainian troops, presumably from the Kraken Special Branch, pose with their rifles at the base of the flagpole, posing or crouched on top of a lowered Russian flag.
Another Ukrainian soldier was photographed posing on what looks to be the stairs of a government building. The soldier is beaming from ear to ear as he holds his rifle in the air. A Russian tricolor and a red Soviet Union flag are both in tatters at his feet. On the building above him, the gold and blue colors of the Ukrainian flag are visible flying.
Elsewhere, footage was captured of Kiev’s military vehicles rolling into the liberated city.
The Kraken Special Organization is the Ukrainian Military Intelligence’s special forces unit. Balakliia is a city located in Izium Raion, Kharkiv Oblast, eastern Ukraine.
Friday, Moscow’s military continued to return fire.
This morning, a Russian airstrike destroyed a hospital in the northeastern Ukrainian region of Sumy and injured several people, according to the territory’s governor.
“Without crossing the Ukrainian border, Russian aircraft shot on a hospital.” The official, Dmytro Zhyvytskyi, stated via Telegram that the structures were demolished and that there were casualties. He stated that the hospital is located in the area of Velyka Pysarivka, which borders Russia. Russia insists it does not target civilians.
Down below is a video
Left: Ukrainian troops, purportedly from the Kraken Special Branch, pose with their rifles in front of a Ukrainian flag while standing or squatting on top of a lowered Russian flag. A soldier poses on what looks to be the stairs of a government building. He is grinning from ear to ear as he holds his weapon aloft. At his feet, a Russian tricolor and a red Soviet Union flag are in shreds, and above him, the Ukrainian flag’s yellow and blue is visible on the building.
After an attack that appeared to catch the Russians by surprise, the Ukrainian forces reported advancing approximately 50 kilometers along this front.
This would be the swiftest advance by any side in the war since March, when Russia was forced to halt its disastrous assault on the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.
The Russians have contested the narrative, suggesting that Kyiv manufactured phantom achievements to brag to NATO leaders.
While Ukraine has not yet permitted independent journalists into the area to confirm the extent of its advances, local news websites have published images of troops cheering from the tops of armored vehicles as they roar past street signs bearing the names of formerly Russian-held towns and Russian forces surrendering on the side of the road.
In one touching video, Russian-speaking, weeping women are shown running to embrace Ukrainian troops as they move into a town.
“How long we waited for you,” one said.
A soldier responds, “It’s all right.”
A woman tells the Ukrainian liberator, “We have prayed so long for your return.”
Thank you for returning.
As fighting continues, residents are asked to return to the basements.
A soldier requests that the individual remain in the basement for a bit longer.
There may be additional shelling.
But now that we are here, everything is fine.’
In another film, locals can be seen waving the Ukrainian flag enthusiastically as soldiers drive through a community to welcome them back to the territory.
Since Russia moved its focus to the region early this year and annexed large portions of eastern Ukraine, thousands of Ukrainian nationals have been living under Russian occupation.
On November 4, when Russia celebrates National Unity Day, it has been suggested that referendums on joining the Russian Federation could be held in the eastern Donbas and other Russia-controlled regions of Ukraine. This could result in Russia annexing portions of the country, as it did in 2014 with Crimea.
Russia has already recognized as sovereign certain portions of the Donbas.
However, as Ukrainian forces continue to advance eastward, such elections may be in jeopardy.
This poignant video depicts weeping women running out of a building to embrace Ukrainian forces who have conquered the local town.
As Ukrainian forces reach her in Balakliia, a woman embraces a soldier while crying tears of delight and disbelief.
Residents can be seen waving the Ukrainian flag enthusiastically as soldiers pass through a community to welcome them back.
If the Ukrainian gains are confirmed and maintained, Putin’s forces will suffer a significant setback.
Ukraine claims that more than 50,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since the invasion began on February 24. According to Western intelligence services, Russia has incurred heavy fatalities.
If the Ukrainian advances are confirmed, this number could continue to increase at an accelerated rate.
According to the Institute for the Study of War, the Ukrainians are now within 15 kilometers of Kupiansk, a crucial junction for the key railway lines that Moscow has used for months to supply its forces on the eastern battlefields.
However, Putin’s permanent envoy to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzya, stated that just “a few villages on the periphery” had been captured.
He stated, “As far as we can tell, even the highest brass of the Ukrainian armed forces condemned this insanity.”
‘However, following his discussion with his U.S. and U.K. colleagues, the Ukrainian leader exhibited stubbornness.
‘Consequently, the bodies of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers who were sent to their deaths and prevented from retreating by anti-retreat forces are dispersed in fields near Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, and forests near Kharkiv,’ he asserted.
In addition to the film showing Ukrainian army conquering cities, there were also spectacular videos of fighting.
Ukrainian soldiers were seen driving Humvees against Russian-occupied locations in two distinct videos. In one movie (shown), captured by a camera mounted on the soldier’s helmet, he can be seen firing a heavy machine gun from the rear of a military truck as it barrels towards a community at dusk.
Tracer rounds may be seen being fired in front of the photographed vehicle, while smoke billows from the weapon. At one point, the soldier is shown moving to a rocket launcher and firing at the Russian position.
In this image, soldiers discover destroyed T-72 tanks in the woods. One of the tanks is seen with its turret blown off, a regular occurrence since Putin launched his fatal invasion.
At least two submerged tanks are seen in this footage, with the Russian ‘Z’ emblem on their sides.
Ukrainian soldiers were seen driving Humvees against Russian-occupied locations in two distinct videos. In one clip captured by a camera mounted on the soldier’s helmet, he can be seen firing a heavy machine gun from the rear of a military truck as it barrels towards a village at dusk.
Tracer rounds can be seen being fired in front of the vehicle, while smoke is expelled from the weapon. At one moment, the soldier is seen moving to a rocket launcher, which he then uses to fire at the Russian position.
Other recordings from eastern Ukraine are beginning to reveal the magnitude of Russian losses. Dozens of Russian tanks were discovered deserted, wrecked, or submerged in waterways. In one video, at least two submerged tanks with the Russian ‘Z’ emblem visible on their sides can be seen.
Another depicts the moment when soldiers discovered demolished T-72 tanks in the woods. One of the tanks is seen with its turret blown off, a regular occurrence since Putin launched his fatal invasion.
Several recordings of captured Russian combatants exacerbated the situation for the dictator of Russia. One of the films that surfaced earlier this week appeared to depict the capture of a lieutenant colonel.
Since Russia’s soldiers were defeated near Kyiv in March, Moscow has launched an unrelenting battle of attrition, using its superior weaponry to attack cities and villages in order to make modest advances.
However, this strategy is contingent upon daily shipments of tons of munitions from western Russia to the front lines. Up until today, Russia had successfully thwarted Ukraine’s attempts to sever the railroad line.
On Friday morning, the Ukrainian general staff reported that retreating Russian soldiers were attempting to evacuate wounded personnel and damaged military equipment.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces, aided by the local populace, advanced about 50 kilometers in three days due to their skillful and coordinated activities.
An apartment complex and business centre in Kharkiv that was recently struck by Russian airstrikes is pictured on Friday.
Friday shows firefighters working among the debris of a collapsed building in downtown Kharkiv.
Friday shows emergency personnel standing near a building hit by a Russian airstrike.
On Thursday, a child’s stuffed animal can be seen halfway out of the window of an apartment building in Kharkiv.
Thursday in Kiev, Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (not shown).
The unexpected Ukrainian advance in the east occurred a week after Kyiv declared the launch of a long-awaited counteroffensive hundreds of kilometers away in Kherson region in the south.
According to Ukrainian sources, Russia deployed thousands of troops to the south in response to the Kherson offensive, leaving other portions of the frontline vulnerable and poorly defended.
In a video broadcast to YouTube, presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych remarked, “We uncovered a weak area where the enemy was unprepared.”
Less information has surfaced thus far on the campaign in the south, with Ukraine keeping media at bay and revealing few specifics in order to conceal its complete plans.
Ukraine has been employing powerful artillery and rockets given by the West to attack Russian rear positions, with the intention of trapping thousands of Russian troops on the west side of the broad Dnipro River and cutting off their supplies.
Arestovych recognized that advancements in the south had not yet been as rapid as the unexpected breakthrough in the east.
RIA cited Russian-appointed Kherson authorities as stating that during the counterattack, Ukrainian forces were seized and an unspecified number of Polish tanks they were using were destroyed. Reuters was unable to confirm these reports.
U.S. On Thursday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kyiv and presented a package of $2.2 billion in military support for countries at risk of Russian invasion, with over half of the funding earmarked for Ukraine.
Additionally, Washington announced an additional $675 million in new weapons for Ukraine.
Russian soldiers are visible in the Kherson region of Ukraine, according to a photograph issued by Russia today.
In a photograph released by Russia today, Russian servicemen can be seen sitting on an armored vehicle in the Kherson region of Ukraine.
In a photograph provided by Russia today, a Russian soldier poses next to an artillery weapon in the Kherson region of Ukraine.
A image provided by Russia today shows a Russian soldier aiming a missile launcher in the Kherson region of Ukraine.
Russia has continued to fire upon Kharkiv from north of the battlefield. According to the regional prosecutor’s office, various areas were hit by missiles on Thursday, resulting in extensive damage and casualties.
“We are terrified… Never can you get used to it,’ Olena Rudenko told the Reuters news agency.
Russia denied civilian targeting. Since Moscow initiated what it terms a’special military campaign’ in February to ‘disarm’ Ukraine, tens of thousands of people have been slaughtered, millions have been uprooted from their homes, and cities have been leveled.
On the path to success? How deft Ukrainian counterattacks have trapped down Russian soldiers in the south and ripped through their frontline in the north, leaving Putin’s invasion vulnerable to collapse.
Chris Pleasance’s article for MailOnline
It is a result that few dared to anticipate. But ten days after Ukraine’s generals announced the beginning of their first major counterattack against Russian soldiers, the path to success is becoming increasingly evident.
Ukraine’s leaders employed deft strategies to lure Russian soldiers into the country’s south before pinning them down with a counterattack around the city of Kherson.
As a way of HIMARS strikes that destroyed the city’s key bridges, some of Putin’s finest soldiers are now essentially trapped in the city, harassed by Ukrainian artillery and unable to cross the Dnieper River without difficulty.
Yesterday, this allowed Ukraine to launch a second, surprise counterattack to the east of Kharkiv, with a ‘fist’ of tanks and soldiers punching through the weakened defenses.
These soldiers are currently advancing fast, endangering major supply routes into Donbas.
Dr. Mike Martin, a former British army officer who is now a professor at King’s College, stated yesterday on Twitter, “If [Ukraine] pulls that off, it’s serious rout time.”
Putin is once again confronted with an ugly defeat. If his forces are forced to retreat from Kherson and cease their offensive in Donbas, it will be difficult for Putin to portray the invasion as a success.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is celebrating its achievements. According to a commander who spoke Thursday, troops have already reclaimed a total of 270 square kilometers of terrain across both fronts, which is a significant accomplishment despite the fact that victory is still a long way off. Here, MailOnline investigates how Ukraine drove the war to this crucial juncture…
Ukraine is launching two big offensives, the first in the south of the nation, near Kherson, where an estimated 30,000 Russian soldiers are believed to be trapped. Yesterday, the second assault was conducted east of Kharkiv and breached the poorly maintained Russian frontline.
How about victory? A Ukrainian soldier leaps with delight and waves to his buddies as they ride on the top of armored vehicles in Kherson that are their route to the front lines.
Kherson
Ukraine made no secret of its intentions to retake this city in the south.
Kherson, the sole regional capital held by Russian troops since February, spans the Dnipro River, giving Putin’s men their only access to the west side and maintaining his hopes for an assault on Odessa’s port.
Officials warned anybody who would listen for weeks that they would return to retake the territory, and they backed up their threats with missile and bomb attacks on neighboring bridges, railways, ammo depots, airfields, and command centers.
This convinced Russia that the threat was real, resulting in a massive deployment of personnel and equipment to the region. Since May, over a dozen battalions have been transferred from the eastern Donbas to Kherson.
An estimated 30,000 troops were stationed there when Ukraine launched its invasion on August 29, with Nataliya Gumenyuk, the spokesman for Ukraine’s southern command, stating that the first line of defense had been breached.
On August 29, Ukraine started its much-hyped invasion in Kherson, claiming to have breached the Russian frontline. Since then, it has pushed along three axes: one from Davydiv Brid, which has acquired the greatest ground, another advancing south along the Dnipro River, which has gained only moderate ground, and a third to the south, which has met with varying degrees of success.
Kyiv’s forces are making modest but steady progress in Kherson, trapping an estimated 30,000 Russian troops in the region – many of them are virtually stranded west of the Dnieper River after the destruction of the main bridge crossings.
According to an analysis by the Institute for the Study of War, since late August Ukrainian forces have advanced along three major fronts (ISW).
Ukrainian troops forced the poorly-equipped 109th regiment of the Donetsk People’s Republic to retreat south from Davydiv Brid towards Beryslav, a major river crossing.
The troops of Kiev have now moved around eight miles south of their initial position, with fierce battle continuing.
In addition, a slow but steady advance has been taking place to the south of Kryvyi Rih, where Ukraine has recaptured a handful of minor towns and villages while pressuring Russia back into the Dnieper River.
The third front is between the Ukrainian-held city of Mykolaiv and the city of Kherson, where the success of the Ukrainian forces has been mixed.
Analysts at ISW believe they have made some progress along the coast of the Dniprovs’ka Gulf towards the settlement of Oleksandrivka, but in reality they have been pushed back along the crucial M-14 motorway connecting the two cities.
In contrast to the dramatic buildup to the attack, which seems aimed to put Russia on high alert, Ukraine has spoken nothing about the operation now that it is underway, and has requested that people refrain from posting footage of it online.
Each side claims the other is suffering high casualties in the conflict, but neither provides evidence of their own.
Kharkiv
Kharkiv has been a forgotten frontline for months. Since mid-May, when Ukrainian troops crossed the Russian border and were subsequently forced back, fighting in this region has received little attention.
Yesterday, however, Ukraine launched a surprise attack to the east of the city, breaching Russian lines weakened by the evacuation of troops from Kherson and storming more than 12 kilometres in a single day.
ISW believes that they gained 155 square miles in a single sweep, with films showing dozens of dead or arrested Russian soldiers, including a lieutenant colonel, and overrun fortifications.
Balakliya, a city that formerly housed significant Russian bases and ammo depots, was abandoned yesterday evening, according to sources with ties to the Russian military.
Dejected Russian war bloggers speculated that Izyum, the staging area for Putin’s broader assault on the Donbas, would be the next target. Dr. Martin of King’s College suggested that the true objective of the operation was to control a major railway junction in the city of Kup’yans’k.
Ukraine launched a surprise counterattack east of Kharkiv on September 7, advancing more than 12 kilometers in a single day of action after punching through poorly held Russian frontlines with a “fist” of tanks and soldiers.
Somewhere in Kharkiv, Russian soldiers face a massive Ukrainian assault after Ukrainian forces burst past the frontlines and began rapidly taking area.
Capturing the junction would destroy the key rail link between the Russian city of Belgorod and the Ukrainian city of Izyum, depriving Putin’s forces in the Donbas of supplies, especially the hundreds of artillery shells they require daily to keep their offensives moving ahead.
Dr. Martin of King’s College wrote, “Ukraine is using the weakened Russian front lines in an attempt to seize the railway junction that will cut the supplies to Izyum, causing the majority of that front to collapse.”
Putin would be forced to abandon even his most modest war objective of seizing the entire Donbas region. It could also necessitate troops to retire from acquired area to avoid being surrounded and captured.
Wednesday night, during his nightly video broadcast, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed progress in the Kharkiv region.
This week, encouraging news has arrived from the Kharkiv region. You have likely already seen news reports about the actions of Ukrainian defenders, and I believe that every citizen is proud of our heroes,’ Zelensky said.
Oleksiy Arestovych, presidential adviser to Zelensky, also commented on Ukrainian successes near Kharkiv on Wednesday night, stating that they would assist disrupt supplies to Russian soldiers in the region and could lead to their encirclement.
Videos depicted hundreds of dead or captured Russian soldiers, including a bleeding lieutenant colonel (shown on the left) wearing epaulettes.