Status: 09/11/2022 10:43 p.m
There was a power outage in large parts of eastern Ukraine. Kyiv blamed Russian attacks on infrastructure. Previously, Ukraine had reported the recapture of other Russian-held areas in the region.
According to Ukrainian sources, following the partial withdrawal of its own troops, Russia fired on the neighboring country’s critical infrastructure. The eastern Ukrainian regions of Kharkiv and Donetsk are completely without electricity, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Twitter. “Russian terrorists remain terrorists,” he wrote. They would not target military targets, but would leave the people of Ukraine without electricity and heating.
conflicting parties as a source
Information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian conflict parties cannot be directly checked by an independent body in the current situation.
Attacks on critical infrastructure
The governor of the Kharkiv region said Russian attacks on “important infrastructure” had cut off electricity and water supplies. The emergency services are working to bring the fires under control at the locations hit. The governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region accused Russian troops of attacking “energy infrastructure” to avenge their “defeat on the battlefield”. His counterpart in the Sumy region reported that at least 135 towns and villages were affected by power outages.
In the meantime, there was an air alert throughout Ukraine. Some residents reported explosion noises on social networks. In Kharkiv, where Russian units had only recently withdrawn, the mayor of the regional capital of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekhov, wrote on Telegram: “This is a hideous and cynical revenge by the Russian aggressor for the successes of our army.”
Counter-offensive progresses
The Ukrainian troops had previously pushed ahead with their counter-offensive in the north-east and in the south of the country. Governor Oleh Synyehubov said more than 40 places in Kharkiv were back under Ukrainian control. Ukrainian military chief Valeriy Saluschnyy said that since the counteroffensive began in early September, around 3,000 square kilometers of land have been recaptured.
Two-thirds of the recaptured areas were recaptured in a very short time, said Ukrainian General Staff spokesman Oleksandr Shtupun. “The end of the occupation in Ukraine continues. In total, in the last few days we have liberated regarding 2000 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory from Russian occupation. Our units have advanced to Kupyansk and are in the process of liberating towns in the Kupyansk and Izyum regions of the Kharkiv region .”
Russia admits territory losses
At the daily briefing, the Russian ministry showed the scope of the withdrawal on a map: According to this, the Russian army only controls a small part in the east of the region east of the Oskol river. At the briefing the day before, the map had indicated a much larger area as being under Russian control.
Russians are also said to withdraw from Cherson
According to information from Kyiv, following their defeat in the eastern Ukrainian region of Kharkov, Russian troops are also withdrawing from parts of the southern region of Cherson. In some places, the occupiers have already left their positions there, the Ukrainian general staff said. In the city of Nowa Kachowka, the Russian soldiers had cleared a hospital in order to hole themselves up in it, it was said. This information cannot be independently verified.
Clear criticism from Russian ally
Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who is loyal to the Kremlin, blamed mistakes by the Russian military leadership for the withdrawal from Kharkiv: “They made mistakes and I think they will draw the necessary conclusions,” he told Telegram, referring to the military leadership.
“If they don’t make any changes to the military special operations strategy within the next day or two, I will be forced to contact the Defense Ministry leadership and the country’s leadership to explain the actual situation on the ground,” Kadyrov continued . Observers took his statements as a sign of possible tensions within the Russian ranks.
Topic overview
war in Ukraine
