“I want to thank — from here, from this place of victory — each of our soldiers for these 500 days,” Zelenskyy stated. “Thank you to everyone who fights for Ukraine!”
It was unclear when the video was filmed. Zelenskyy was in Turkey on Saturday.
Russian forces took management of the tiny stone island on February 24, 2022, the day Moscow launched its invasion, within the obvious hope of utilizing it as a staging floor for an assault on Odesa, Ukraine’s greatest port and the headquarters of its navy.
The island took on legendary significance for Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion, when Ukrainian troops there reportedly acquired a requirement from a Russian warship to give up or be bombed. The reply supposedly got here again, “Go (expletive) yourself.”
The island’s Ukrainian defenders have been captured by the Russians however later freed as a part of a prisoner trade. After the island was taken, the Ukrainian army closely bombarded the small Russian garrison there, forcing the Russians to tug again on June 30, 2022. The Russian retreat decreased the specter of a seaborne Russian assault on Odesa and helped pave the way in which for a deal to renew Ukrainian grain exports.
The tiny rocky outcrop that is change into a conflict legend
“Let the freedom that all our heroes of different times wanted for Ukraine and that must be won right now be a tribute to all those who gave their lives for Ukraine,” Zelenskyy stated. “We will definitely win!”
Intense battles continued to rage on Saturday within the nation’s east and south as Ukrainian forces pressed their assaults towards multi-layered Russian defences within the preliminary phases of their counteroffensive.
Ukraine’s inside ministry stated {that a} Russian rocket strike in town of Lyman killed eight civilians and wounded 13 others early on Saturday. Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the jap Donetsk area, posted photographs displaying a few of the useless, together with a physique mendacity beneath a bicycle and physique fragments on the pavement subsequent to a broken automobile, saying that “the Russian terrorists are continuing to strike civilians in Donetsk.”
A non-public residence, a store and some vehicles have been broken within the assault on Lyman, which sits just some kilometres from the entrance line, the place Russian troops have just lately intensified preventing within the forests of Kreminna.
The UK Ministry of Defence stated in its newest intelligence replace that the jap city of Bakhmut that was captured by the Russians in May has seen a few of the most intense preventing alongside the entrance over the last week.
It stated that Ukrainian forces have made regular good points to each the north and south of Bakhmut within the Donetsk area, noting that “Russian defenders are highly likely struggling with poor morale, a mix of disparate units and a limited ability to find and strike Ukrainian artillery”.
Amid the preventing, Russia and Ukraine accused one another of planning to sabotage the Russia-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear energy plant, which is Europe’s largest, fuelling fears of a radiation disaster. Ukraine’s army intelligence claimed on Saturday that Russian troops have planted extra mines across the plant, a declare that could not be independently verified.
The head of the United Nations nuclear company, Rafael Mariano Grossi, instructed The Associated Press that the International Atomic Energy Agency specialists had just lately gained entry to extra of the positioning, together with the cooling pond and gasoline storage areas, and located no mines there.
Grossi stated he was nonetheless pushing for entry to the rooftops of reactors the place Ukrainian officers accused Russia of planting explosives.
As the tensions swirled across the plant, the Russian army has insisted that it has efficiently fended off Ukrainian assaults in numerous sections of the entrance.
On Saturday, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu was proven visiting firing ranges the place volunteer troopers are being educated, a visit that comes two weeks after an abortive mutiny launched by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose Wagner troops marched on Moscow in a bid to oust Shoigu.
Prigozhin agreed to finish the mutiny, which represented the most important menace to Russian President Vladimir Putin in his greater than 20 years in energy, in trade for an amnesty for himself and his troops and permission to maneuver to Belarus. On Saturday, Russian messaging app channels ran feedback by certainly one of Wagner’s commanders, Anton Yelizarov, who stated that the mercenaries have taken depart however would finally deploy to Belarus.
Pitched battles alongside the entrance line in Ukraine are raging as NATO leaders are set to fulfill in Vilnius for a two-day summit subsequent week to supply extra assist in modernising Ukraine’s armed forces, create a brand new high-level discussion board for consultations and reaffirm that it’ll be part of their alliance someday.
Ahead of the NATO summit, the US has introduced that it’ll present Ukraine with cluster munitions, a transfer that President Joe Biden described as a “difficult decision”. Two-thirds of NATO members have banned the munitions which have a monitor report of inflicting many civilian casualties, however the US sees their supply as a approach to assist bolster Ukraine’s offensive and push by Russian entrance traces.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov hailed the US transfer, saying that the supply of cluster munitions will assist the nation de-occupy its territories whereas saving the lives of the Ukrainian troopers.
Reznikov vowed that Ukraine will use the munitions just for the de-occupation of its territory and won’t fireplace them at Russia’s correct territory. Reznikov additionally famous that the Ukrainian army won’t use cluster munitions in city areas to keep away from hurting civilians, including that they are going to be put to motion within the subject to “break through the enemy defence lines with minimum risk for the lives of our soldiers”.
Source: www.9news.com.au
