The long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian troops is underway, Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the Presidential Administration in Kyiv, said. “Our actions have already begun,” he said, according to the DPA and Agerpres agencies.

“The counteroffensive has been going on for several days,” he said in an interview given on Wednesday evening to the Italian Rai television, which was broadcast on Thursday morning.

“This is an intense war along the 1,500-kilometer border. Our actions have already begun,” Podolyak, adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyi, added in the Italian translation.

At the same time, Mykhailo Podolyak denied Kyiv’s involvement in the recent terrorist attacks in Russia’s Belgorod district, located on the border with Ukraine.

Russian militants, opponents of President Vladimir Putin, who are based in Ukraine – the Russian Volunteer Corps (Russki Dobrovolceski Korpus, RDK) and the “Freedom of Russia” legion – announced an armed invasion from the territory of Ukraine into the Russian Belgorod region. in recent days, warning that they are going to repeat similar raids, international press agencies report.

Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin are not even capable of defending their own territory, Podolyak said, referring to the fighting in the area. “What is happening in the border region is a shock for Putin and will lead to his end,” said a Ukrainian official.

Ukraine does not want to attack the territory of Russia, insisted Podolyak. Addressing an Italian journalist, the president’s adviser in Kyiv said: “We use the weapons you gave us to destroy Russian positions in the territories occupied by Moscow, including Donbas and Crimea.”

If the F-16s were also delivered, Ukraine’s airspace could be “finally” covered, he said.

Noting that Ukraine now has long-range Storm Shadow missiles, Leopard tanks and other Western equipment, Podolyak noted that “if they were there a year ago, the war would have ended today,” reports Interfax-Ukraine.

Russian tactics: flood the fields to stop a possible Ukrainian offensive

Russian troops occupying part of Zaporizhzhia region in southeastern Ukraine flooded fields in two areas near the front line to prevent a possible Ukrainian advance, the legitimate mayor of Melitopol said on his Telegram account on Thursday, reports said. EFE agency.

“To strengthen their defenses around the city of Melitopol, they are using everything at hand, from World War II defense lines to water,” says Ivan Fedorov, the Ukrainian mayor of the city, which Russian forces have turned into the capital of the occupied territory. Zaporizhzhia region.

“They are flooding the fields both near the front line and in the direction of Crimea, near Yakymivka,” said Mayor Fedorov, who is trying to continue fulfilling his duties in the Kiev-controlled territory of Zaporozhye.

On other occasions, he warned that Russian troops would flood fields in the region to stop a possible Ukrainian advance. According to him, Russian troops are flooding these lands with the help of irrigation canals.

The legitimate mayor of Melitopol also stated that the Russian troops are moving the bases they created in the city to the surrounding forests and lands where they are allegedly digging trenches.

For its part, the Ukrainian General Staff declares that Russian troops in Zaporizhzhia have been preparing for weeks to defend against the long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Due to its geographical location, the Zaporizhia region, home to the largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine and Europe, is important for Kyiv’s ambitions to return the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014, EFE notes.

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