Zelensky: Tell Putin my generals are in a positive mood

KYIV - President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian counter-offensive operations were under way, but declined to divulge details, telling reporters to pass on the message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine’s generals are optimistic.

On Sunday, Kyiv announced that Ukrainian forces had retaken a village in the country’s south, the first reported gain of the offensive. Ukraine’s ground forces said in a statement that soldiers of the 68th separate ranger brigade had “liberated the settlement of Blagodatne” in the region of Donetsk.

Last Saturday, Mr Zelensky shrugged at a press conference in Kyiv when asked about comments by Mr Putin, who said on Friday that Ukraine had begun its counter-offensive but failed to make progress.

“Counter-offensive and defensive actions are taking place in Ukraine, but I will not say in detail what stage they are at,” Mr Zelensky said, listing Ukraine’s top military brass by name.

“They (the generals) are all in a positive mood. Pass that on to Putin,” he said with a smile, standing alongside

visiting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

In his nightly video address, Mr Zelensky provided few details while urging troops to keep fighting.

“Thank you to all those who hold their positions and those who advance,” he said, citing the eastern and southern fronts, where fighting is heaviest.

Ukraine’s general staff said its forces have repelled enemy attacks around Bakhmut and Maryinka, sites of heavy clashes in the east.

Russian forces, it said, “continue to suffer heavy losses which they are trying to conceal”.

Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar made it plain on Telegram that the military would issue no statements until battlefield positions became clear.

“Ask yourself this... am I prepared to receive information about the liberation of this or that town not when our troops enter it, but once they establish a stronghold?“ she wrote.

On Sunday, she said the Nova Kakhovka dam was blown up by Russian forces to prevent Ukrainian troops from advancing in the southern Kherson region.

“The explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station was apparently carried out with the intention of preventing the Ukrainian Defence Forces from launching an offensive in the Kherson sector,” Ms Maliar said on Telegram. 

She said the action, which unleashed a vast flood that inundated towns and villages, trapped residents and swept away entire houses, was also aimed at helping to allow the deployment of Russian reserves to the Zaporizhzhia and Bakhmut areas.

Ukraine has said for months that it plans to conduct a major counter-offensive to recapture land occupied by Russia in the south and east. But it is enforcing strict operational silence for now after previously denying it had begun the main operation.

Russia says Ukraine launched a big offensive push

last week, but that Kyiv’s forces failed to breach its defences and also sustained heavy casualties.

With scant independent reporting from the front lines, it has been difficult to assess the state of the fighting.

Britain’s Ministry of Defence said

Ukraine had conducted “significant” operations

in several eastern and southern parts in the last 48 hours, with Russian defences breached in places.

Meanwhile, Russia’s most powerful mercenary said on Sunday that his Wagner fighters would not sign any contract with Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu just hours after the defence ministry sought to bring volunteer detachments under its sway.

“Wagner will not sign any contracts with Shoigu,” Mr Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner group said, referring to Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.

Mr Prigozhin said Wagner was integrated into the overall system and completely subordinate to the interests of Russia but that its highly efficient command structure would be damaged by reporting to Mr Shoigu.

“Shoigu cannot properly manage military formations,” Mr Prigozhin said, adding that Wagner coordinated its actions in Ukraine with General Sergei Surovikin, nicknamed “General Armageddon” by the Russian media.

Mr Prigozhin has repeatedly attacked President Vladimir Putin’s top military brass for what he casts as treachery for failing to fight the war in Ukraine properly.

Neither Mr Shoigu nor Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov have commented in public on Mr Prigozhin’s insults and criticism.

‘Some progress’

“In some areas, Ukrainian forces have likely made good progress and penetrated the first line of Russian defences. In others, Ukrainian progress has been slower,” the British Defence Ministry said, also characterising the Russian military’s performance as mixed.

“Some (Russian) units are likely conducting credible manoeuvre defence operations while others have pulled back in some disorder, amid increased reports of Russian casualties as they withdraw through their own minefields.”

Ukraine’s counter-offensive is expected to use thousands of troops that have been trained and equipped by the West, but Russia has built huge fortifications in occupied territory in preparation, while Kyiv also lacks air supremacy.

The south is seen as a key strategic priority for a Ukrainian push that could aim to

recapture Europe’s biggest nuclear plant

and cut the Russian land bridge to the occupied Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, dividing Russian forces.

Ukraine reported gains last week around Bakhmut, the city that Russia said it captured in May and, last Saturday, military spokesman Serhiy Cherevaty reported new gains.

“We’re trying... to conduct strikes on the enemy, we are counter-attacking. We’ve managed to advance up to 1,400m on various sections of the front,” he said.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said Ukrainian forces had in the past 24 hours made “unsuccessful” attempts to attack in the southern Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, as well as near Bakhmut.

Ukraine’s third assault brigade published footage of what it said were offensive operations near Bakhmut, where it said it had inflicted Russian casualties and hit an ammunition dump.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the battlefield situation and statements by both sides.

Iran must ‘end support’ for Russia

French President Emmanuel Macron urged his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi to “immediately end” Teheran’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which involves supplying Moscow with attack drones, the French presidency said.

Mr Macron in a telephone call underlined the serious “security and humanitarian consequences” of Iran’s drone deliveries “and urged Teheran to immediately end the support it thus gives to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”, said a statement.

The call came a day after White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Russia was receiving materials from Iran to build a drone factory that “could be fully operational early next year”.

The United States has said Russia has received hundreds of Iranian attack drones to hit Kyiv and “terrorise” Ukrainians, a charge denied by Teheran. REUTERS