Ukraine launches ‘long-anticipated’ counteroffensive in Kherson

Ukraine has launched a counteroffensive to recapture the strategically important city of Kherson from Russian forces.

The long-anticipated operation offically began yesterday and marked “a major step forward in Kyiv's campaign to retake key Russian-held territory in the south” of the country, said The Telegraph. Kherson was “the first major city to fall” to the invading forces and has “since been used by Moscow as a strategic hub and staging post for its offensives”.

The announcement of the counteroffensive, via Ukrainian state media outlets, suggests a “growing confidence in Kyiv that Western military aid is giving it renewed impetus in the war”, said the i news site.

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In an address to his nation yesterday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “If they want to survive, it’s time for the Russian military to run away. Go home. Ukraine is taking back its own.”

Both sides have issued conflicting reports on the status of the offensive. Ukraine’s military yesterday claimed to have broken through Russia’s first line of defence in the Kherson region, while Moscow said the attempt had “failed miserably”.

Neither side’s claims were “independently verified”, said the BBC, but “explosions and shots were heard for a second day on Tuesday in the regional capital”.

The “wider region is strategically valuable” too, said euronews. “Alongside being a hub of Ukrainian agriculture, it borders the Russian-controlled Crimean Peninsular, which Russia has used as a rear base for the invasion.”

As Reuters noted, Ukraine’s offensive “comes after weeks of a stalemate in a war that has killed thousands, displaced millions, destroyed cities and caused a global energy and food crisis amid unprecedented economic sanctions”.