Ukraine says fourth Donetsk town recaptured
Kyiv, June 12 (EFE).- Ukraine says it has liberated another small town in the Donetsk region, making it the fourth recapture since president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the country’s much anticipated counter offensive, officials reported on Monday.
“On June 4, 2023, as part of a defensive operation, the village of Novodarivka was liberated from the occupiers with the joint actions of a mechanized unit and a combined unit of the Zaporizhzhia Separate Brigade of Territorial Defense,” the Zaporizhzhia Separate Brigade of Territorial Defense said on its Facebook page.
Novodarivka, which lies near the Zaporizhzhia border with Donetsk, is the fourth town to be liberated since Zelenskyy announced Ukraine’s counteroffensive on Sunday.
Kyiv has also announced the advancement of more troops around Bakhmut, a city in eastern Ukraine that is almost entirely controlled by Moscow forces.
“Positional battles continue here (in the Bakhmut direction – ed.). The enemy tries, to no avail, to try to counterattack as well,” Serhii Cherevatyi, the spokesman for the Eastern Group of Forces, reported in a national Telethon.
Meanwhile, rescue efforts continue after the Kakhovka dam breach last week flooded dozens of towns and villages in southern Ukraine on both sides of the Dnipro River.
Moscow and Kyiv blame each other for the damage caused to the dam.
Russian installed authorities in Kherson reported on Monday that 1,659 people remain in temporary accommodation.
Russia’s interim Kherson governor, Vladimir Saldo, said that the water level in some districts of the city had dropped one and half meters and that specialists from Russia’s defense ministry had been deployed to the area to carry out disinfection works linked to the flooding.
According to RusHydro, Russia’s hydroelectric producer, the water of the Dnipro River will return to its usual course below the wrecked Kakhovka hydroelectric power station by Friday June 16.
The dam breach has caused the displacement of almost 9,000 people in southern Ukraine.
Over 7,000 people have been evacuated in Russian-controlled towns in southern Ukraine, according to the authorities.
Russia has reported eight deaths linked to the vast floods and Ukraine has reported five deaths. EFE
mg/ch
