A Ukraine soldier raises the national flag above the village of Myrolyubivka in Kherson province in southern Ukraine, October 3, 2022

Monday’s Coverage: Zelenskiy — “The Successes of Our Soldiers Are Not Limited to Lyman”

Source: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1640 GMT:

Authorities in Russia-occupied Crimea have punished Miss Crimea 2022, Olga Valeyeva, and her unnamed friend for singing a patriotic Ukrainian song in a video on Instagram Stories.

The two women sang Chervona Kalyna on a balcony. Valeyeva was fined 40,000 roubles (£590), and her friend was given a 10-day prison sentence.

UPDATE 1627 GMT:

The Russian Defense Ministry is not acknowledging a widespread retreat in northeastern and southern Ukraine — but its maps are making the admission.

In the Ministry’s daily briefing, the shaded area of Russian control in the northeast had been pulled back 20 km (13 miles) along a 70-km (43-mile) line south from Kupyansk along the Oskil River.

That confirmed the near-complete departure of the Russians from Kharkiv, up to the border with Luhansk Province.

In the south in Kherson Province, the shaded area of control has retreated 25 km (15 miles) to the south, confirmed reports of Ukraine’s advance on Monday.

UPDATE 1011 GMT:

The latest Russian attacks across the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine have killed one civilian and injured four.

In the Kharkiv region in the northeast, a woman was killed by Russian shelling of an industrial site.

UPDATE 1002 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has signed a decree formally declaring talks with Vladimir Putin to be “impossible”.

Zelenskiy said on Friday, after Putin’s “annexation” of occupied areas of Ukraine, “He does not know what dignity and honesty are. Therefore, we are ready for a dialogue with Russia, but with another president of Russia.”

UPDATE 0957 GMT:

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi has ordered the Russian consul in Sapporo to leave the country by October 10.

Last month Russia’s State security agency FSB detained the Japanese consul in Vladivostok and expelled. Japan said the consul was mistreated while in custody.

UPDATE 0813 GMT:

North Korea may have recognized Vladimir Putin’s “annexation” of occupied areas of Ukraine, but Iran — which has proclaimed alliance with Russia and supplied “kamikaze drones” to bolster Moscow’s flagging invasion — has issued a rejection.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said on Monday:

As always and based upon its principled stances, the Islamic Republic of Iran emphasizes the need for the full observance of the principle of territorial integrity of states as a fundamental rule of the international law and respect for the principles and goals of the United Nations Charter.

The Islamic Republic of Iran believes that any provocative move that may obstruct the path to peace, stability and calm must be avoided.

UPDATE 0649 GMT:

In his Monday night address to the nation, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said of the successes from the east to the south:

Today, the offensive movement of our army and all our defenders continued. There are new liberated settlements in several regions.

Fierce fighting continues in many areas of the front. But the perspective of these hostilities remains obvious – more and more occupiers are trying to escape, more and more losses are being inflicted on the enemy army, and there is a growing understanding that Russia made a mistake by starting a war against Ukraine….

No sham referenda, announcements about annexations, conversations about the borders they invented and drew somewhere, will help them.

There is a clear and internationally recognized border of Ukraine. There are lives we must protect. There is security we must restore. And all this will happen. We are doing all this.

UPDATE 0642 GMT:

A crumb of comfort for the Kremlin this morning — North Korea is the first country to endorse Vladimir Putin’s “annexation” of occupied areas in southern and eastern Ukraine:

We respect the will of the residents who wished to reunite with Russia, and we support the position of the Russian government on making these regions part of the country. The referendums were held in accordance with the UN Charter, which enshrined the principles of equality of people and their right to self-determination, in accordance with legitimate procedures that made it possible to reflect the will of the inhabitants of the two republics and two regions.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: The Ukrainian counter-offensive in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine has made significant advances, complementing the break-through in the northeast and east against Russian occupiers.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had hinted at the advance in his Sunday night video address to the nation: “The successes of our soldiers are not limited to Lyman,” the strategic city in eastern Ukraine liberated on Saturday.

Throughout Monday, officials began to give details of villages regained along the Dnipro River. Zelenskiy cited the settlements of Arkhanhelske and Myrolyubivka. Forces also secured positions in the areas of Zolota Balka and Khreshchenivka.

Ukraine’s military claimed the destruction of 31 Russian tanks and one multiple rocket launcher.

Russian sources said the counter-offensive had reclaimed Shevchekivka and Lyubymivka, pushing Russian forces to new defensive positions around Mykailivka. On Monday evening, Moscow’s military acknowledged that the Ukrainian army and its “superior tank units” had managed to “penetrate the depths of our defense” around the villages of Zoltaya Balka and Alexsandrovka.

Vladimir Saldo, the Russian proxy leader in Kherson, said Ukrainian forces had retaken settlements as far back along the Dnieper river as the village of Dudchany, 30 km (19 miles) south of the previous frontline.

The Russian outlet RBC said the head of the Western Military District, Col.-Gen. Alexander Zhuravlyov, had been fired.

The advance further dented Vladimir Putin’s decree of “annexation”, issued last Friday, of the occupied areas of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south and the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east.

The Kremlin tipped off its disarray when spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it is still determining which areas it has annexed.

Russia’s upper house, the Federation Council, will try to maintain Putin’s posture with the formal endorsement of the annexation on Tuesday. The lower house, the Duma, unanimously approved the measure on Monday.

Filming himself on a riverbank near the Antonovsiy Bridge, the deputy head of Kherson’s Russian proxy administration, Kirill Stremousov, insisted, “Everything is under control.”

We are on the ground and continue to take care of the citizens of the Russian Federation of the Kherson region. We are now Russia and everything will be fine.

Ukraine launched its counter-offensive in Kherson at the end of August. Days later, the military began the advance in the Kharkiv region in the northeast.

Most of the more than 8,000 square km (3,088 miles) of liberated territory was in Kharkiv. However, the southern operations eroded Russian capabilities with attacks on bridges, ammunition depots, airbases, and logistics and supply centers — not only in Kherson but in the Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula.