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Ukraine has liberated more than 40 towns and villages in its Kharkiv Oblast, officials revealed, days after the country’s Armed Forces launched a counteroffensive on Russian-occupied parts of the northeastern Ukrainian region.
“We have liberated a large part of our territories in the districts of Chuhuiv, Kupiansk and Balakliya. The liberation of settlements in the Izyum district continues,” Oleh Synyehubov, the governor of Kharkiv Oblast, said in an interview with the Ukrainian publication Dumka Sunday.
Synyehubov, who is also the head of the region’s military administration, said that dozens of settlements have already been liberated, but he was only allowed to talk about 40 of them.
“We simply cannot announce [the real number of liberated settlements] taking into account the interests of the military operation of our Armed Forces, which is currently ongoing,” he said.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine launched a counteroffensive on Russia-occupied territory in the Kharkiv region Tuesday.
In a video address delivered the following day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky refused to name the settlements that were liberated in the operation, saying it was “not the right time to name those settlements.”
Ukraine has recaptured 2,000 square kilometers (770 square miles) since the start of the counteroffensive in Kharkiv, Zelensky said in another address Saturday.
A map presented by the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) during a daily briefing for journalists the next day showed that the Russian military has retreated from Kharkiv, according to a report by independent Russian news outlet Meduza.
An “operation to curtail and transfer troops” was underway, the ministry said when commenting on the withdrawal.
“The Russian army these days is demonstrating the best that it can do – showing its back. And, of course, it’s a good decision for them to run,” Zelensky was quoted as saying by CBC after the Russian MoD formally announced the Russian military’s retreat from nearly all of Kharkiv.
Russia launched strikes on the region in what Ukrainian officials described as an act of “revenge” for Ukraine’s recent successes.
The attacks left much of Kharkiv without power and water, The Guardian reported.
There were also reports of blackouts in the neighboring Sumy and Poltava regions as well as in Dnipropetrovsk, but Zelensky’s office said power has been restored.
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