Ukraine’s counteroffensive in past month in numbers
October 6 marks one month since the Ukrainian Armed Forces began a lightning counteroffensive in Kharkiv region, reached Luhansk region and accelerated liberation of Kherson region.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces recaptured more than 1,300 square kilometers of land in Kherson region between October 1 and October 5, Russia’s Meduza said.
Since October 2, the Ukrainian troops had advanced 20 kilometers deep into the Russian lines in Kherson region, the UK defense intelligence said in its update on October 6. Ukraine’s Armed Forces started a new phase of offensive operations in Kherson Oblast on October 2. Advancing south, Ukrainian units have pushed the front line forwards by up to an additional 20km, primarily making gains along the east bank of the Inhulets and west bank of the Dnipro, the report said.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces recaptured more than 1,500 towns and villages as the counteroffensive in the south and north-east builds, deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Kyrylo Tymoshenko and Deputy Interior Minister Yevhen Yenin said October 4.
The Ukrainian troops retook 1,534 towns and villages in Kherson, Kharkiv, Mykolayiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions, of which 483 in Kharkiv region, and more than 50 in Kherson region.
In the past week, Ukraine retook more than 4,000 sq km, Russia’s Agentstvo said. On a map displayed on October 4 during a daily briefing of the Russian Defense Ministry, an area of Russian military control was smaller than the day before. In August, the Russian troops controlled 10,600 sq km in Kharkiv region (33 per cent of land). The number shrunk to about 2,000 sq km by mid-September. In the past week, Russia’s occupying troops lost 1,650 sq km of land, Agentstvo said.
In the past week, Russia lost 2,750 sq km of territory it had seized in eastern Ukraine, including Lyman and the surrounding area. The Ukrainian Armed Forces recaptured more than 1,300 sq km of land in the north of Kherson region in the same period. Russia’s total losses in the past week exceed 4,000 sq km.
The Ukrainian troops recaptured about 8,600 sq km in Kharkiv region since early September, bringing the total to almost 13,000 sq km. “The territory is the size of Montenegro or Qatar,” Agentstvo said.
Russian missile strikes on Zaporizhzhia kill four, destroy buildings
On the morning of October 6, Russia fired seven missiles on Zaporizhzhia. One woman was killed, and 12 more people were wounded. Rescuers pulled out 21 people from under the rubble of the damaged apartment buildings.
Several hours later, Russia carried out another missile strike on the city. The rockets hit infrastructure sites. In the afternoon on October 6, rescue workers pulled three more bodies from the rubble of the collapsed apartment buildings, bringing the death toll to four.
© Dmytro Sheremet (RFE\RL)
EU’s new sanctions on Russia include oil price cap
The EU approved the eighth package of sanctions against Russia over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It includes support for a price cap on oil sales to third countries. The new restrictions respond to Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s territory through the sham “referenda”, mobilization of additional troops, and open nuclear threats. The package also lays the basis for the required legal framework to implement the oil price cap, the European Commission said in a statement.
The eighth package of sanctions against Russia is rather weak, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told a Lithuanian radio broadcaster.
“The time for strong packages has passed, and when reading the documents presented, you sometimes get the impression that there are more exceptions than sanctions,” Landsbergis said.
Russia, war crimes, and international tribunals. Ukraine in Flames #210
Thousands of apparent war crimes have transpired during the seven months of the Russian-Ukrainian war. The liberation of Ukrainian cities like Irpin, Bucha, and Izium has exposed the use of captivity, torture, rape, murder and forced transportation as mechanisms of instilling fear in Ukrainians. Ukraine is carefully monitoring and documenting all the war crimes for further investigation and international tribunals. Watch Ukraine in Flames #210 to learn the mechanisms of tracking Russia’s alleged war crimes and the effectiveness of international tribunals.
Speakers:
- Oleksandr Pavlichenko, executive director, Ukrainian Helsinki Union for Human Rights
- Gyunduz Mamedov, Deputy Prosecutor-General of Ukraine (2019-2021)
- Anton Korynevych, Ambassador-at-Large, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
- Iryna Voronkina, Kharkiv-based journalist
