OUR Russian army tonight they assured that they “repelled” an “attempt to attack” Ukrainian forces on their territory Peninsula and Mykolaif, in south of Ukraineclaiming it dealt “heavy blows” to Ukrainians.

“This new attempt to attack the enemy failed miserably,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Earlier today, it was reported from Kyiv that Ukrainian troops launched a counteroffensive in the south to push the Russians across the Dnieper River and retake the occupied city of Kherson.

“The armed forces of Ukraine have gone on the offensive in several zones in the south. We ask Kherson residents to observe safety precautions: stay close to shelters and away from the positions of Russian forces,” the head of the regional administration, Yaroslav Yanusevich, said in a Telegram message. “We believe in the Ukrainian army!” he concluded.

“Today we had strong artillery strikes on enemy positions (…) throughout occupied Kherson. This was a statement that we have been waiting for since spring: this is the beginning of the end of the occupation,” Sergi Hlan, a member of the local parliament and adviser to the regional governor, told Ukrainian television.

“What is happening now is a well-planned and balanced launch of a counterattack,” he told AFP, claiming that “Ukrainian planes are now flying all over the front line” in the region.

Hlan said Ukrainian forces have gained an advantage on the southern front after striking bridges in the Kherson region in recent weeks to cut off supplies to the Russian army. He said that the “first line of defense” of the Russian forces had been breached, forcing the Russians to “fall back”.

“Big losses” for the Ukrainian army

“The first stage (counterattack) is the right bank of the Kherson region. It is still difficult to talk about the liberation of the left bank,” he explained.

Earlier, the Ukrainian media quoted the press secretary of the “Southern” army command, Natalya Khomeniuk, who said that Ukrainian troops on this front were advancing “in many directions.” The Ukrainian military group Kakhovka posted on Facebook that it watched a pro-Russian separatist unit withdraw from its positions in the area.

These claims cannot be independently verified.

For weeks, Ukrainian forces have said they are planning a counteroffensive to liberate Kherson, a strategically important region bordering Crimea, a peninsula annexed by Russia in March 2014.

However, the Russian Defense Ministry claims that “Ukrainian army units suffered heavy losses due to the energetic defense of Russian soldiers.” In his statement, he says the Russians destroyed 26 tanks, 32 armored vehicles and two Su-25 fighter jets. “The enemy has lost more than 560 soldiers,” he added.

^{Source: APE-MEB, Reuters, AFP.}