Russian troops are panicking as Ukraine advances further into occupied territory after fleeing near Kharkiv, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
The Ukrainian president said overnight that speed is now the key to pushing Russia back.
It happened when his troops entered the city of Bilohorivka and returned to the Luhansk province just two months after Russia took full control over them. Governor Serhiy Gaidai said the army is now preparing to retake the entire region.
Meanwhile, Liz Truss, who was traveling to a UN summit in New York, pledged Britain to spend at least £2.3 billion in support of Ukraine in 2023 – equal to or better than levels of support this year.
Ukrainian troops have advanced in Bilohorivka and recaptured their first town in Luhansk province as the governor says they are preparing to retake the entire province
Kiev’s men continue to advance after Russian forces flee near Kharkiv as Zelenskyy says they are “in a panic”.
Ukrainian troops ride on an armored personnel carrier through the newly liberated city of Izyum in eastern Ukraine
After the United States, the United Kingdom was one of the largest donors of military and civilian aid to Ukraine.
Any new support package will likely include multi-launch missile systems like those used by Ukraine to conduct precision strikes on Russian command posts, ammunition depots and supply lines.
Russia is currently in retreat in Ukraine after suffering a humiliating defeat east of the city of Kharkiv last month that returned more than 3,000 square miles of previously occupied territory to Ukrainian control.
Donbass leader pushes for referendum in Russia
The head of a breakaway region of Ukraine has called for a referendum on belonging to Russia.
Denis Pushilin, leader of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), said steps should be taken to prepare a vote on the issue.
He made the call in a phone conversation with Leonid Pasechnik – head of the neighboring Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) – a video of which was posted online.
Pushilin claimed that holding the referendum was “a reflection of our people’s opinion,” which he says has been “set for a long time.”
Although the DPR and LPR are under the de facto control of the Kremlin, Putin currently considers them independent nations.
The territories are not recognized by any major world organization.
Nor is there any evidence that a majority of the people in the regions — who are conscripted by Russia and sent into battle as “cannon fodder” — would welcome joining the mainland.
Putin held a similar mock referendum in Crimea in 2014 before annexing it.
Putin’s commanders are now attempting to reinforce and push back the Ukrainians while Zelenskyy’s men hold the new line, surveying the defenses and advancing where possible.
Summing up the situation overnight, Zelenskyy said: “We are stabilizing the situation, holding our positions. Firmly. So tight that the occupiers noticeably panic.
“We have warned Russian soldiers in Ukraine that they have only two choices: flee our country or surrender…
“Thanks to the Security Service of Ukraine, we are now confident that the occupiers will not gain a foothold on Ukrainian soil.”
Serhiy Gaidai, governor of the occupied Luhansk region, said soldiers had advanced into the village of Bilohorivka – the first in Luhansk to be recaptured.
It will be the starting point for an attack on the wider region with the aim of bringing it back under Ukrainian control, he added.
However, he warned that Russia is preparing its defenses and “we will not just invade” – to dampen expectations of another rapid Kharkiv-style advance.
Ukraine is also attacking southward in Kherson, where its forces sank a Russian pontoon bridge carrying arms and troops across the Dnipro River on Monday.
“The situation remains tense but under our control,” said a spokesman for Ukraine’s southern command.
Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk province form the industrialized eastern region of the Donbass, which Moscow says it wants to seize as a priority target of the so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Ukrainian troops have begun moving into Luhansk after driving Russian forces out of northeastern Kharkiv province in a lightning-fast counteroffensive this month.
In a sign of nervousness by a Moscow-backed government in Donbass over the success of Ukraine’s recent offensive, its leader has called for urgent referendums on the region’s belonging to Russia.
Denis Pushilin, head of the Moscow-based separatist administration in Donetsk, urged his fellow separatist leaders in Luhansk to pool efforts to prepare a referendum on joining Russia.
Ukraine’s general staff said Monday the fighting was limited to the Donetsk region.
“During the last 24 hours, units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine repelled enemy attacks in the areas of the settlements of Mayorsk, Vesele, Kurdyumivka and Nowomykhailivka,” reads a daily update.
Liz Truss is set to deliver her inaugural address to the United Nations today, where she will pledge to at least double the £2.3 billion in aid the UK has given Ukraine this year in 2023
In the south, where another Ukrainian counter-offensive is progressing more slowly, Ukrainian forces said they sank a barge carrying Russian troops and equipment across a river near Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region.
“Attempts to build an intersection failed to withstand the fire of Ukrainian forces and were stopped. The barge … became an addition to the occupier’s submarine forces,” the military said in a statement on Facebook.
Ukraine is still assessing what happened in areas that were under Russian control for months before a flight of Russian troops earlier this month dramatically changed the dynamics of the war.
At a huge makeshift cemetery in forests near the recaptured town of Izium, Ukrainian forensic scientists have so far unearthed 146 bodies buried without coffins, Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synehubov said on Monday. Around 450 graves were found on the site, Zelenskyy said
Workers fanned out in groups from under the trees and used shovels to exhume the partially decomposed corpses, some of which locals said had lain in the city streets long after their deaths before being buried.
The government has not yet said how most of the people died, although officials say dozens were killed when a home was shelled and there are indications others were killed by shrapnel.
Ukraine continues to exhume a mass grave in Izyum, where the bodies of civilians and soldiers – some of whom appear to have been tortured – were found after the liberation from Russia
Ukrainian forensic scientists and war crimes investigators in hazmat suits work on exhuming graves in a forest near the town of Izyum
According to preliminary investigations, four showed signs of torture, with hands tied behind the back or in one case with a rope around the neck, Serhiy Bolvinov, the head of the investigative police in the Kharkiv region, told Portal at the burial ground.
Bolvinov said the vast majority of the bodies appear to be civilians. Locals have identified their dead by matching names to numbers on thin wooden crosses marking the graves.
“Soldiers’ hands were tied, there were signs of torture on civilians,” Bolvinov said. Ukraine says 17 soldiers were in a mass grave at the site.
Portal could not confirm Ukraine’s torture allegations.
The Kremlin on Monday denied that Russia was responsible for atrocities that Ukraine said it had uncovered in the retaken territory.
“This is a lie and of course we will defend the truth in this story,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, comparing the allegations to incidents earlier in the war where Russia claimed without evidence that atrocities were staged by Ukrainians.