Russian troops retreat after Ukraine counteroffensive

Source: The Hill | September 11, 2022 | Karl Ritter and Hanna Arhirova

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces on Sunday pushed its counteroffensive in the country’s east, exploiting quick gains they made in a week of fighting that has sharply changed the course of the conflict.

Ukraine’s quick action to reclaim Russia-occupied areas in the northeastern Kharkiv region forced Moscow to withdraw its troops to prevent them from being surrounded and leave behind significant numbers of weapons and munitions in a hasty retreat as the war marked 200 days on Sunday.

The jubilant Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mocked the Russians in a video address late Saturday, saying that “the Russian army in these days is demonstrating the best that it can do — showing its back.”

On Sunday, he posted a video of Ukrainian soldiers hoisting the national flag over Chkalovske, another town they reclaimed from the Russians in the counteroffensive.

Ukraine’s military chief, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyy, said Sunday that Ukraine had liberated about 3,000 square kilometers (about 1,160 square miles) since the beginning of September. He noted that the Ukrainian troops are now just 50 kilometers (about 30 miles) away from the border with Russia.

The Russians’ pullback marked the biggest battlefield success for Ukrainian forces since they thwarted a Russian attempt to seize the capital, Kyiv, at the start of the nearly seven-month war. Ukraine’s attack in the Kharkiv region came as a surprise for Moscow, which had relocated many of its troops from the area to the south in expectation of the main Ukrainian counteroffensive there.

In an awkward attempt to save face, the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday the troops’ withdrawal from Izyum and other areas in the Kharkiv region was intended to strengthen Russian forces in the neighboring Donetsk region to the south.

The claim sounded similar to the justification Russia gave for pulling back its forces from the Kyiv region earlier this year when they failed to take the capital.

The group of Russian forces around Izyum has been key for Moscow’s effort to capture the Donetsk region, and their pullback will now dramatically weaken the Russian capability to press its offensive to Ukrainian strongholds of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk just south.

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