[1/6] Ukrainian military personnel check a destroyed Russian BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle during the Russian attack on Ukraine near the front line in the newly liberated village of Storozheve in Donetsk region, Ukraine, June 14, 2023. Portal/Oleksandr Ratushniak/Archive Photo
SOUTHEASTERN UKRAINE, June 15 (Portal) – Russia on Thursday announced plans to hold elections in occupied parts of Ukraine in just three months. Moscow’s latest attempt to signal it’s in control, even as a Ukrainian counter-offensive has pushed back its troops in some areas.
The Ukrainian attack is at an early stage and military experts believe that the decisive battles are still ahead. But bodies of Russian soldiers and burned-out armored vehicles lining the side of roads in villages recently recaptured by Ukrainian forces bear witness to Kiev’s greatest progress since last year.
Portal reached the villages of Neskuchne and Storozheve in the past two days, providing the first independent confirmation of Ukraine’s advance several kilometers south along the Mokry Yali River into areas Russia had held since the early days of its invasion last year.
Several bodies of Russian soldiers lay in the streets of destroyed and depopulated villages. Ukrainian troops in Storozheve told Portal they killed around 50 Russians and captured four.
Moscow has not conceded any backlash and says it has inflicted heavy casualties on Ukrainians in attempted attacks.
Ukraine’s military, which had maintained strict silence on the campaign for more than a week, spoke out on Thursday to announce progress and held its first full-scale media briefing since the counteroffensive began.
Brigadier General Oleksii Hromov said troops have so far captured at least seven settlements and 100 square kilometers of territory in two major advances in the south.
“We are ready to continue fighting for the liberation of our territory with our bare hands,” he said.
The army on the southern front had advanced up to 7 km (4.4 miles) in the area along the Mokry Yali, as well as up to 3 km (1.8 miles) on another axis further west near the Ukrainian village of Mala Tokmachka military officials.
They also described advances to the east around the devastated city of Bakhmut, which Moscow captured last month as the lone major booty in a massive winter and spring offensive that saw the bloodiest ground fighting in Europe since World War II.
Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed this week that Moscow’s objectives in Ukraine remain unchanged despite the Ukrainian counter-offensive. He claimed that Russian forces inflicted ten times more casualties on Ukrainians than they endured.
ELECTION PLAN
Russia’s announcement that it was planning elections in the occupied territories was Moscow’s latest attempt to convey that the situation was stable.
Russia’s state news agency TASS quoted Ella Pamfilova as saying that both the Ministry of Defense and the Federal Security Service (FSB) had concluded that the votes could take place in September.
Russia last year announced the annexation of four Ukrainian provinces, although it does not fully control any of them and lacks the main population centers in two of them.
Kiev says all elections held by Russians on Ukrainian territory are invalid and illegal.
The big test for Ukraine’s offensive is yet to come. Russia had months to prepare its defense. Ukrainian troops have not yet reached the heaviest Russian defenses set back from the front line.
Kiev is believed to have prepared an assault force of around 12 brigades, each with thousands of soldiers, most of whom used newly arrived Western armored vehicles. Only a fraction of them have been committed so far.
For its part, Russia has released images of Western tanks and armored vehicles it claims to have destroyed or captured.
In Brussels, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin chaired the latest meeting of a group of around 50 countries set up by Washington to coordinate Western arms donations to Ukraine.
“I ask the members of this contact group to continue digging deep to provide Ukraine with the air defenses and ammunition it so desperately needs to protect its citizens,” Austin said.
Reporting by Vitalii Hnidyi in south-eastern Ukraine, Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv and Portal offices. Text: Peter Graff. Editor: Frances Kerry
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