Ukrainian troops liberated three more settlements in the south of Kherson region on Wednesday, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi said in a video message on Wednesday evening, Reuters reports.

Zelensky noted that the three liberated settlements – Novovoskresenske, Novogrigorivka and Petropavlivka – are located northeast of Kherson.

Zelenskyi’s statements were made after images of Russian soldiers surrendering in Kherson with BMP-2 appeared on social networks.

Also in Kherson, according to the military blog MilitaryLand.net, two more T-62M tanks were captured.

Ukrainian troops on Monday made the biggest breakthrough in the country’s south since the start of the war, breaking through the front and rapidly advancing along the Dnieper river, threatening to surround thousands of Russian troops.

The progress is reminiscent of recent Ukrainian gains in the northeast that turned the tide of the war against Russia, although Moscow has tried to raise the stakes by annexing territory, ordering mobilization and threatening nuclear retaliation.

“The situation is, let’s say, tense, because, yes, there were indeed breakthroughs,” Volodymyr Saldo, a leader appointed by Russia in the occupied parts of Ukraine’s Kherson region, told Russian state television.

“There is a settlement of Duchane, just on the bank of the Dnieper, and it was there, in that area, that the breakthrough occurred. There are settlements that are occupied by Ukrainian troops,” he added.

“When we retreat, we actually advance” – Russian technique

Kyrylo Stremousov, the deputy head of the regional state administration installed by the Russians in Kherson, downplayed the successes of the Ukrainian armed forces, saying that they captured only villages at the cost of tens or hundreds of lives.

“Going back to all those counterattacks, as some people call them, you know, it’s like a broken record. Practice shows that all such counterattacks end in complete disorder and the deadly destruction of those who attack. That’s why we don’t panic,” says Kyrylo Stremousov.

“But you know, the most interesting thing, I said in the television program, I reminded our enemies, who are now speaking Ukrainian, not to speak Russian: enemies, remember our tactical maneuver. When we retreat, it means we are moving forward,” Stremosov added.

His press secretary, Dmytro Peskov, assured that the territories annexed by Putin on Friday and now beginning to be retaken by Ukrainian troops will remain Russian “forever” and that Moscow will rapidly regain the ground it has lost over the past month.

These territories “will be recaptured,” he assured at his daily conference.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that he expects “stabilization” of the situation in the four partially controlled regions that Russia declared Russian territory on Friday.

“We assume that the situation will stabilize, we will be able to calmly develop these territories,” Putin said in his televised address.

Putin has previously vowed to do everything possible to defend the annexed territories, even if that means using nuclear weapons, a threat that has not stopped either the Ukrainian counteroffensive or Western arms shipments.