Ukrainian forces announced on Sunday that they had recaptured a village “from the hands” of Russian forces in southeastern Ukraine, the first settlement they claimed to have liberated since launching a counterattack this week, Reuters reported.

Ukrainian military personnel raise the flag of Ukraine in the recently liberated BlagodatnyPhoto: video shooting

The military raised the Ukrainian flag on a bombed-out building in an unverified video released by the 68th Jaeger Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which it said was a settlement in Blagodatne, Donetsk region.

“We are seeing the first results of counteroffensive actions, localized results,” Valery Shershen, spokesman for the Tavria military sector in Ukraine, said on television.

According to him, the village is located on the edge of the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, a few kilometers south of the Kiev-controlled village of Velka Novosilka.

With such a small amount of information from Kyiv, which is used to being silent about the counteroffensive, and with the presence of several independent reports from the front line, it is almost impossible to assess the situation on the battlefield.

The flag of Ukraine was raised in Blagodatny

In the video from Blagodatny, you can see how Ukrainian troops are in a badly damaged building, and the sounds of artillery can be heard in the distance.

“We are expelling the enemy from our native land. This is the warmest feeling. Ukraine will win, Ukraine above all,” said an unidentified military man in a Facebook video.

About the capture of six occupiers in Blagodatny was also reported in the Armed Forces of the Tauri Front, Ukrainian Pravda reports.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday gave the clearest information yet that Kyiv has launched a long-awaited counterattack to retake land in the east and south, confirming that “counteroffensive and defensive operations” are taking place.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that the Ukrainian army is on the way, but so far has not been able to break through Russian defenses and has suffered heavy losses.

However, the British Ministry of Defense said in its Saturday assessment that Ukrainian troops “probably made good progress” and “penetrated the Russian front line.”

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) states that Ukrainian troops are conducting “an attempt at an extremely complex tactical operation.”

This is a frontal assault on prepared (Russian) defensive positions, which is further complicated by Ukraine’s lack of air superiority, the ISV notes.