Ukraine says it has liberated three villages in the country’s southeast in the first victories of its long-awaited counteroffensive.
Footage on social media showed Ukrainian soldiers celebrating in the neighboring villages of Blagodatne and Neskuchne in the Donetsk region.
Kiev’s deputy defense minister said nearby Makarovka had also been captured.
On Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that the counteroffensive had begun.
Those three villages would be the first to be liberated since his comments, but not the first to be retaken by Ukraine since Monday, when pockets of its forces began advancing in the south of the country.
Moscow has not yet confirmed the fall of any of the villages, instead talking of repelling Ukrainian attacks in the region.
Elsewhere, Ukraine said Russia blew up another dam in the Zaporozhye region after the main Nova Kakhovka dam collapsed on Monday, causing widespread flooding.
Ukraine claims the dam was blown up by Russian forces, who have controlled it since February 2022.
Valery Shershen, a Ukrainian military spokesman, said Moscow’s forces chose to blow up a second dam near the village of Novodarovka, which “led to flooding on both banks of the Mokri Yali River.”
Mr Shershen said Russia was deliberately blowing up dams in the region to stop Ukraine’s advance into occupied areas.
Russia has denied blowing up the Nova Kakhovka dam and instead blamed Ukraine.
“Again under the Ukrainian flag”
Footage shared by pro-Ukrainian social media accounts showed soldiers raising the Ukrainian flag in front of a burned-out building in Blagodatno.
And the state border guard released videos showing Kiev forces announcing that “Neszchno from Donetsk Oblast is back under the Ukrainian flag” before shouting the now-standard battle cry “Glory to Ukraine”.
Meanwhile, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said in a Telegram video that Ukrainian forces had also captured the village of Makarovka.
An army spokesman said the successes were the first localized victories in the counteroffensive.
While the capture of the three villages marks the most progress in recent days, the settlements are relatively small. The pre-war population of Blagodatne was only 1,000 inhabitants.
The village, which has been the center of intense fighting in recent days, lies on the road to the city of Mariupol, and some analysts have suggested that Ukraine may try to capture the port city in the coming months.
Others speculate that Kiev wants to cut the land bridge between occupied Crimea and Donetsk, isolating Russian troops on the peninsula.
Further east, Ukrainian troops are said to have advanced near the ruined city of Bakhmut, the scene of a long and bloody battle between Ukrainian forces and Russian troops.
Senior officials in Kyiv declined to comment on the specifics of the advance.
Ukraine’s enigmatic intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov released a video on Sunday repeating the catchphrase “plans love silence,” symbolizing the secrecy behind the counteroffensive.
The extent of Ukraine’s operations remains unclear, but the US-based think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on Saturday that Kiev’s forces were attacking at least four front-line areas.
Ukraine has suffered some setbacks in probing Russian fortifications. A group of Ukrainian soldiers told AFP they lost several new American-made Bradley fighting vehicles in an attack in southeastern Zaporizhia province on Thursday.
Six of the nine vehicles were broken into, they said, adding that they feared someone had leaked information about their plans.
Analysts have highlighted the difficulties Ukraine faces in trying to break through the lines Russia has been fortifying for months.
But in other areas, Kiev troops were said to have breached front lines in mechanized attacks over the weekend, with German Leopard-2 tanks said to have been deployed.
Meanwhile, in Russia’s Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, rail traffic was halted after a freight train derailed on Saturday evening. Belgorod’s border areas have been hit by drones, shelling and cross-border attacks in recent weeks.
Further north, Kaluga Oblast Governor Vladislav Shapsha said there were two drone crashes, one near the village of Strelkovk and the other in a forest.