Ukraine made its most audacious claim yet of military success in its week-old counter-offensive against Russian soldiers in the south, as European markets reopened in free fall on Monday after Russia kept its main gas pipeline to Germany closed.
After refusing to provide specifics on their new offensive for several days, Ukrainian officials shared an image online of three soldiers hoisting a flag over a town in Kherson province, a southern territory seized by Russia since the beginning of the war.
The image of the flag being fastened to a pole on a rooftop was released as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy stated that Ukrainian forces had conquered two towns in the south and one in the east. He did not identify the sites in an overnight address.
After months of enduring severe Russian artillery assaults in the east, Ukraine has now launched its long-awaited counter-offensive, the largest since driving Russian forces out of Kyiv’s outskirts in March.
To maintain tactical surprise, Ukraine has kept most aspects of its new assault under wraps, barring journalists from the frontlines and offering little public commentary. Russia claims to have repulsed attacks in Kherson.
TASS news agency quoted a Moscow-installed official in Kherson as saying plans for a referendum to annex the region to Russia had been put on hold due to the security situation, in a rare admission from the Russian side that the Ukrainian counter-offensive was sabotaging Moscow’s plans for territory it had seized.
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