Ukraine says counteroffensive has liberated five villages in southeast

Four of the villages — Neskuchne, Storozheve, Blahodatne and Makarivka — are located south of Velyka Novosilka, one of the counteroffensive’s key starting points, close to the border of the Zaporizhzhia region. The villages are clustered on a roughly 5½-mile stretch of road leading south into occupied territory heavily fortified by Russia.

The fifth town, Novodarivka, is located just over the line in Zaporizhzhia.

The towns are about 80 miles north of the long-occupied city of Mariupol, which was nearly destroyed by heavy Russian bombing last year.

Ukraine on Monday made no mention of the losses incurred as part of the advance. And the focus on such a small stretch of territory underscored the difficult nature of the counteroffensive and the likelihood that gains, if any, would be measured in minute increments.

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On Sunday, the Ukrainian Volunteer Army posted a video in which its members posed with their battalion colors in the village of Neskuchne. The Washington Post could not independently verify the video, or others purporting to show the liberations.

Ukraine’s 35th Separate Marine Brigade posted a video on Monday reportedly showing its forces raising the Ukrainian flag and marching through the village of Storozheve, and the 68th Separate Jaeger Brigade showed footage from the village of Blahodatne.

“The operation began at about 5 a.m.,” a soldier, identified only by his call sign “Doc,” said in the Storozheve video. “The enemy resisted with its artillery in the beginning. We managed to take the initiative into our own hands and retake the village house by house.”

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar, posting on Telegram, said that Ukraine’s forces also have taken the town of Makarivka, just south of Blahodatne.

Rob Lee, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a military expert, said that although “the villages by themselves are not significant,” the announcements indicated that Ukrainian forces were “making progress.”

“I think it’s going about as it should have been expected,” Lee said. “But it’s going to be a tough fight given that they’re going into prepared defensive positions and Russia’s been preparing these lines for several months.”

The rate of attrition on both sides will be a key factor as the campaign unfolds, Lee said. “This is going to be a long offensive,” he said, pointing out that Ukrainian forces’ offensive to take back the southern city of Kherson started in August, but “they made their first substantive gains in October.”

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Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed in a statement to have repelled attacks in the area, beginning in Vremivka — the first town along the road south from Velyka Novosilka.

“Decisive actions of defending units, artillery fire and heavy firing systems of the Vostok Group of Forces repelled three enemy attacks from the direction of [Velyka Novosilka] of the Donetsk People’s Republic,” the Russian Defense Ministry said, referring to the separatist region recognized by Moscow in its illegal attempt to annex Ukrainian territory.

Ukrainian officials have warned that Kyiv’s forces could experience high casualties as they try to claw back territory from Russia’s army, which has entrenched itself in heavily fortified positions throughout Ukraine’s south and east.

Last week, video and photographic imagery indicated that Ukraine’s military suffered significant losses of equipment — including some Leopard battle tanks recently acquired from its Western allies.

Ukraine also claimed Monday to have made advances on the flanks of the destroyed eastern city of Bakhmut, which recently fell to Russian control after more than eight months of fierce and bloody fighting.

Ukrainian troops had pushed back Russian forces a further “250 to 700 meters” in areas near Bakhmut, according to Serhiy Cherevaty, the spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern forces.

Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, contributed to this report.