Ukrainian leaders on Monday said they had liberated an eighth village in the counteroffensive launched about two weeks ago as forces continue to inch through heavily fortified Russian-occupied territory.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said forces had taken the town of Piatykhatky in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, where a major Ukrainian advance is continuing to make slow but steady progress through entrenched Russian lines.
Ukraine has now freed up to 70 miles of territory in the southern region, Maliar also wrote on Telegram.
Russian military bloggers also confirmed the presence of Ukrainian troops in the town of Piatykhatky but said they were unable to move forward after coming under fire from Russian artillery.
Ukraine has also announced that it has retaken seven others towns: Lobkove, Levadne, Novodarivka, Neskuchne, Storozheve, Makarivka and Blahodatne. These towns are on the edges of Russian-occupied territory in the Zaporizhzhia region and the southern Donetsk region.
“Our troops are advancing, position by position, step by step, we are moving forward,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Sunday address.
Independent Western analysts have assessed Ukraine is making incremental progress in the first wave of the counteroffensive, which is expected to stretch on for months.
However, Ukrainians have been taking heavy losses, which Moscow seized on as a sign the operation is failing. Russian President Vladimir Putin last week said Ukraine has “no chance” for the counteroffensive to be successful and claimed Kyiv was suffering a “catastrophic” defeat.
Some losses are expected in the beginning as officers look for weaknesses in the Russian defenses.
The U.K. Defense Ministry on Sunday said both sides are suffering heavy losses, with Russians taking the highest number casualties since the peak for the battle of Bakhmut in March.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive is wide ranging, with forces moving in several directions in the south and in the east near Bakhmut, where heavy fighting continue. Russia took control of Bakhmut in May after months of attritional warfare.
In the south, Ukrainian forces are moving toward the cities of Melitopol and Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov, which if reached would enable Kyiv to cut off a crucial land bridge from mainland Russia to the Crimean Peninsula.
Russian forces are also moving into an offensive phase of their own in eastern Ukraine, putting some pressure on Ukrainian troops to defend territory during the counteroffensive.
Russia is attacking toward the town of Lyman in northern Donetsk and in the towns of Avdiivka and Marinka further south.
Maliar said Ukrainian soldiers are successfully defending against the Russian assault but described it as “difficult” with “hot battles” across the front.
“We did not lose a single meter of ground in these directions thanks to the professionalism and courage of our fighters,” she wrote. “Our troops act courageously in the face of the enemy’s superiority in forces.”