As Canada PM visits Kyiv, Zelenskyy says counteroffensive ‘taking place’ – Times of India

ZAPORIZHZHIA: In the south, Ukrainian soldiers are fighting on an unforgiving landscape, table-flat farmland with little cover for troops trying to advance. And 60 miles away, they are attacking across the plains, pushing toward a strategic railway junction. Farther east, they are targeting Russian positions on the hills outside Bakhmut, a city in ruins that fell to Russian forces last month after the longest and bloodiest battle of the war.
In fierce battles along the front line this past week, Ukraine’s counteroffensive is taking shape, presenting a major pivot in the war. With each clash, Ukraine is trying to show that it can attack anywhere, while trying to make Russia defend everywhere.
After days of silence on the extent of the fighting, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered the strongest confirmation yet on Saturday that the long-awaited counteroffensive had begun. “Counteroffensive and defensive actions are being taken in Ukraine,” he said in Kyiv, Ukraine.
The confirmation came ata joint press conference with Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, who made his second unannounced visit to Kyiv since full-scale war broke out in February last year.
Trudeau accused Russia over flooding from the breached Kakhovka dam. “Russia is responsible and will be held to account” for the dam destruction, he said. “We’ve all seen the devastation caused by collapse of the dam. This was a direct consequence of Russia’s war,” he said. Trudeau also announced $375 million in new military assistance to Ukraine.
The counteroffensive, a multipronged assault, concentrated along the front in the south and the east, is a test run of Ukraine’s new arsenal of Western tanks and armoured vehicles as well as tens ofthousands of newly mobilized soldiers who trained in Europe for months. Kyiv, which as expected in the early stages is suffering casualties, will need to show significant progress in its counteroffensive to keep the money and weapons flowing from the West.
Once in full motion, Ukraine’s counteroffensive is expected to be one of the largest military operations in Europe since World War II.
Over the past 24 hours, Ukrainian forces firing rockets and artillery hit four Russian command centers; six areas of concentration of personnel, weapons and military equipment; three ammunition depots; and five enemy artillery units in firing positions, Ukraine’s military said. The claims could not be independently verified.