Thumpalumpacus
Major
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.
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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.
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Just as the Russian forces were hastily pulling back from Izyum under Ukrainian fire, Russian President Vladimir Putin attended the opening of a huge observation wheel at a Moscow park, a new transport link and a sports arena.
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Pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov criticized the festivities in Moscow as a grave political mistake.
"The fireworks in Moscow on a tragic day of Russia's military defeat will have extremely serious political consequences," Markov wrote on his messaging app channel. "Authorities mustn't celebrate when people are mourning."
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In a sign of potential rift in the Russian leadership, Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, said that the retreat from the Kharkiv region resulted from the Russian military leadership's blunders.
"They have made mistakes and I think they will draw the necessary conclusions," Kadyrov said. "If they don't make changes in the strategy of conducting the special military operation in the next day or two, I will be forced to contact the leadership of the Defense Ministry and the leadership of the country to explain the real situation on the ground.
Victory has a thousand fathers; defeat is an orphan.
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 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.
[...]
Just as the Russian forces were hastily pulling back from Izyum under Ukrainian fire, Russian President Vladimir Putin attended the opening of a huge observation wheel at a Moscow park, a new transport link and a sports arena.
[...]
Pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov criticized the festivities in Moscow as a grave political mistake.
"The fireworks in Moscow on a tragic day of Russia's military defeat will have extremely serious political consequences," Markov wrote on his messaging app channel. "Authorities mustn't celebrate when people are mourning."
[...]
In a sign of potential rift in the Russian leadership, Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, said that the retreat from the Kharkiv region resulted from the Russian military leadership's blunders.
"They have made mistakes and I think they will draw the necessary conclusions," Kadyrov said. "If they don't make changes in the strategy of conducting the special military operation in the next day or two, I will be forced to contact the leadership of the Defense Ministry and the leadership of the country to explain the real situation on the ground.
Russia hits power stations after Ukraine counteroffensive
Russia attacked power stations and other infrastructure, causing widespread outages across Ukraine as Kyiv’s forces pressed a swift counteroffensive that has driven Moscow’s troops out of swaths of territory it had occupied in the northeast.
Victory has a thousand fathers; defeat is an orphan.