Ukraine announced on Monday that its forces were recapturing more territory on the eastern front in the Bakhmut region and advancing south in a counteroffensive against Russian forces, Reuters reported.

Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said last week Kiev forces had retaken two square kilometers of territory around Bakhmut, a town in the east of the country that was captured by Russian forces in May after months of fighting.

According to Malyar, Kyiv forces also recaptured two villages on the southern flank of the city – Andriivka and Klishchiivka. Both cities are on high ground, and their liberation could pave the way for regaining control of the strategic city of Bakhmut.

According to Malyar, since the beginning of the counteroffensive, Kyiv troops have liberated 51 square kilometers near Bakhmut.

To the south, in the Donetsk region, Ukrainian troops continued to block the Russian advance in the direction of Avdiyivka and Maryinka, Malyar noted.

According to Malyar, Ukrainian troops, who are trying to advance to the Sea of ​​Azov in an offensive aimed at cutting Russian troops in half, have recaptured 5.2 square kilometers over the past week. In general, during the counteroffensive, Ukraine regained more than 260 square kilometers of the southern territory, she noted.

During its three-month counteroffensive, Ukraine reported slow and steady progress against heavily fortified Russian positions, recapturing a number of villages and advancing on the flanks of Bakhmut, but not liberating major population centers.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyi and other Ukrainian officials dismissed critical voices in the West who said the offensive was too slow and hampered by strategic mistakes.

“Good operational performance”

The Institute for the Study of War noted in its latest assessment that Ukrainian forces had liberated two small towns south of Bakhmut, adding that all of Ukraine’s efforts, first defensively and now to conduct counteroffensive operations around Bakhmut, were subject to a significant amount of unwarranted. Critics.

Ukraine’s defensive and counteroffensive operations in the Bakhmut area, launched in the summer of 2022, represent a major operational achievement that has blocked a significant portion of Russian combat power that would otherwise have been available to strengthen Russian defenses in southern Ukraine.

Units of two of the four Russian Airborne Divisions (Airborne Divisions) and three of the four separate Russian Airborne Brigades are currently holding the defense in the Bakhmut area.

This significant Ukrainian achievement helped prevent Russia from creating a large operational mobile airborne reserve that could have been used to stop Ukraine’s main counteroffensive in the Zaporizhzhia region.

The continuation of Ukraine’s large-scale counteroffensive efforts around Bakhmut is necessary to contain Russian forces in the area, as the recent alleged redeployment of a detachment of a separate airborne brigade near Bakhmut in southern Ukraine shows how eager the Russians are to restore combat power. that the Ukrainian counteroffensive around Bakhmut is being established there.