Ukraine says Operation Vivaldi gains ground as Russia kills three in attacks
Russia launched continued attacks on targets across Ukraine, killing at least three civilians and wounding 41 others, officials said on Monday, as Kyiv said its forces had made further gains in a recent push along the front line.
The attacks came after a week of diplomatic efforts at the United Nations to build momentum for talks to end Moscow’s invasion, which began 4 years ago. While battlefield positions have changed little since last year, in part because large numbers of drones have sharply limited troop movements, Ukraine said its recent offensive, codenamed Operation Vivaldi, had made more progress.
Ukraine’s Third Army Corps said it had recaptured another 51 square kilometres from Russian forces, taking the total area retaken to 176 square kilometres since the offensive began several months ago. The corps said that, to break through Russian defences, it had converted Soviet-era BTR-60 armoured personnel carriers into kamikaze vehicles to blow up the strongest Russian fortifications. It also said ground robots had been used to attack Russian positions. The claimed gains were in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, which the larger Russian army has been trying to seize. Russian officials did not immediately comment on the Ukrainian claim.
Russia’s Defence Ministry, meanwhile, said its troops had captured the villages of Novovodiane in the Donetsk region and Ulanove in the northern Sumy region. The claims from both sides could not be independently verified.
Russia has kept up drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and towns, in what Ukraine says is an effort to wear down resistance and damage the economy. Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces struck two data centres in Kyiv and also hit petrol stations in the capital. It said a Nova Poshta postal service distribution hub was hit in the southern city of Odesa. The ministry also said Russian forces struck a cargo ship in the Black Sea and another in the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk. The strikes are aimed at limiting Ukraine’s grain exports, though they may also cause food shortages in countries that depend on Ukrainian imports. Moscow says it targets only military-related sites, but Russian aerial attacks have regularly hit civilian areas.
In the Kyiv region, Russian drone attacks killed three people and wounded eight, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the regional military administration. In the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, a Russian strike on a nine-storey apartment building wounded 38 people, including 10 children, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. In the Chernihiv region in northern Ukraine, four people, including two teenage girls, were injured when a Russian drone hit a residential area on Sunday evening, regional military administration head Viacheslav Chaus said.
Ukraine has also continued long-range drone strikes inside Russia, targeting fuel depots and industrial plants that support Moscow’s economy and war effort. Russian emergency officials said overnight Ukrainian drone attacks started fires at three infrastructure facilities in the Krasnodar region, but did not identify the locations. Russia’s Defence Ministry said its air defences shot down 254 Ukrainian drones overnight. Overall, the latest exchanges underlined both the steady Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian and economic targets and Ukraine’s efforts to push back on the battlefield and strike inside Russia.
