Volodymyr Zelenskyi on Sunday highlighted progress in the Ukrainian counteroffensive that began last week, thanking his forces for capturing two settlements in the south, a third in the east, as well as additional territory in the east of the country, Reuters reported.

He did not specify where those areas were located or give a time horizon for the offensive, saying only that he had received “good reports” at a meeting on Sunday with the intelligence chief and his military command.

In a video message on Sunday evening, Zelensky thanked his troops for liberating a settlement in the east of Donetsk region, for capturing “certain heights” also in the eastern direction in the Lysychansk-Siversky direction, and for liberating two settlements in the south.

Earlier on Sunday, the deputy head of the President’s Office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, published a photo of soldiers raising the Ukrainian flag over a village that he said was in the southern zone, which is the main target of the counteroffensive.

“Vysokopilla. Kherson region Ukraine. Today,” Tymoshenko wrote in a Facebook post above a photo of three soldiers on rooftops, one of whom is attaching a Ukrainian flag to a pole.

Located north of the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow invaded and annexed in February and March 2014, Kherson Oblast was captured by Russian forces at the start of the current conflict.

Lysychansk was captured by pro-Russian separatists from the Luhansk region in early July as part of the battle for the territory of Donbas in eastern Ukraine, which also includes Siversk, where coal mines are located.

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