The Ukrainian army has launched a long-awaited counterattack against Russian forces, according to the American news network NBC News.

After several months of preparation, today a wave of attacks hit the front line in the southeast.

However, this new phase of the war comes at a time when Ukraine has to deal with the consequences of the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam on the Dnieper River.

The Ukrainian government has repeatedly stressed that there will be no official announcement of the start of hostilities. Sources cited by NBC spoke on condition of anonymity, while a Ukrainian military spokesman declined to comment.

Russian officials and military bloggers have been sounding the alarm for several days now, with their eyes focused primarily on the Zaporozhye region. Moscow said on Monday that there was an attempt to break through its positions in the southeast, but its defenses held out. Ukrainian officials denied this claim, accusing Russia of lying and insisting no counterattack had been launched.

Zaporozhye, one of the four partially occupied regions of Ukraine, has long been considered the most likely starting point for a Ukrainian counteroffensive. However, Kyiv seemed to be trying to hide its intentions by inflicting numerous strikes along the entire front line.

The UK Ministry of Defense said earlier today that “heavy fighting continues” in many sectors of the front.

The Ukrainian side denies this

However, the Ukrainian army, for its part, denied the report of the American television company NBC News, according to which Kyiv launched a planned counterattack against Russian troops.

“We do not have such information. And we do not comment on anonymous sources,” a representative of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in an interview with Reuters.

Source: APE-MPE, Reuters.