Kiev, Sept. 15, (dpa/GNA) - President Volodymyr Zelensky travelled to a newly liberated corner of eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, where he said Kiev’s troops were recapturing more and more territory as a rapidly expanding counteroffensive forces invading Russians to retreat.
Visiting the strategic north-eastern city of Izyum, Zelensky said on social media that Ukraine’s blue and yellow flag was once again flying in the formerly occupied Kharkiv region.
“We are moving only in one direction – forward and until victory,” he said. Photos showed Zelensky greeting Ukrainian soldiers.
Izyum was retaken just days ago. An important transport hub, it is considered the gateway to the industrial region of Donbass and had more than 40,000 inhabitants before the war.
Donbass has long been a focus of Russia’s, with Russian-backed separatists running a parallel government in large parts of the region since 2014. It was used as a springboard into the rest of the country when the invasion began in February.
Attacks have not halted either. The central Ukrainian industrial city of Kryvyy Rih reported being struck by Russian cruise missiles on Wednesday. The attack damaged a river dam pumping station, Zelensky said on Telegram.
Zelensky called it an attempt to submerge Kryvyy Rih, which is his hometown.
Hydrotechnical facilities were severely damaged in the “massive missile attack,” according to Dnipropetrovsk Governor Valentyn Reznichenko.
That left parts of the city without water and there were also reports of rapidly rising water levels on the Inhulets River, which is dammed by the city.
Despite such attacks, the counteroffensive is showing initial successes as Kiev reclaims lost land.
Kiev has now recaptured more than 6,000 square kilometres throughout southern and eastern Ukraine since early September, according to official data. At one point in the conflict, Russia controlled more than 20% of the country.
Russian troops were also withdrawing from towns in the eastern region of Luhansk, a Ukrainian official said on Tuesday.
While attempts are being made to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict, recent comments coming out of Moscow gave little room for hope.
Ukraine is demanding security guarantees in the search for a diplomatic end to the war, but the Kremlin slammed such guarantees as a threat to Russia and a call that further justifies the Kremlin’s invasion.
Ukraine continues to aspire to NATO membership, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, according to the Interfax news agency.
“Accordingly, the greatest danger to our country also remains, and thus the reason for the need for the special military operation remains topical, indeed it becomes even more topical,” he said.
Russia’s position on the concept is “negative,” Peskov said. At present, no one can give Ukraine security guarantees except the Ukrainian leadership itself. Kiev must act in such a way that Russia no longer feels threatened, he went on.
At the start of the war, Russia justified its attack on Ukraine with fears for its own security, claiming a “pre-emptive strike” by Moscow would prevent a Ukrainian attack.
The Kremlin’s conditions for starting peace talks include ceding the eastern Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, recognizing Crimea as Russian territory, demilitarizing Ukraine and pledging not to join NATO in the future.
People in contact with Russia gave little hope of that stance changing. A day after his talk with Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the Kremlin leader is recalcitrant when it comes to Ukraine.
“Unfortunately, I can’t tell you that the realization has emerged that it was a mistake to start this war,” Scholz said.
Tuesday’s call was Scholz’s first talk with Putin in more than three months. He insisted that a diplomatic solution and a complete withdrawal of Russian troops had to be achieved as soon as possible and emphasized that it was still right to talk to Putin to explain the German point of view.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that his recent talks with Putin have given him no hope for peace talks starting in the near future, calling such dreams “naive.”
Underlining that point, European Union nations voted unanimously on Wednesday to extend their sanctions on Russia, despite hints from Hungary a week ago that it might want to try to block them.
GNA