Ukrainian forces were working to wrest control of towns and villages around the strategic hub of Izyum
\nKYIV
\nUkrainian forces on Sunday pushed its counteroffensive in the country\u2019s east, exploiting quick gains they made in a week of fighting that has sharply changed the course of the conflict.
\nUkraine\u2019s quick action to reclaim Russia-occupied areas in the northeastern Kharkiv region forced Moscow to withdraw its troops to prevent them from being surrounded and leave behind significant numbers of weapons and munitions in a hasty retreat as the war marked 200 days on Sunday.
\nThe jubilant Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky mocked the Russians in a video address late Saturday, saying that \u201cthe Russian army in these days is demonstrating the best that it can do \u2014 showing its back.\u201d
\nThe Russians\u2019 pullback marked the biggest battlefield success for Ukrainian forces since they thwarted a Russian attempt to seize the capital, Kyiv, at the start of the nearly seven-month war.
\nIn an awkward attempt to save face, the Russian Defense Ministry said the troops\u2019 withdrawal from Izyum and other areas in the Kharkiv region was intended to strengthen Russian forces in the neighboring Donetsk region to the south.
\nThe claim sounded similar to the justification Russia gave for pulling back its forces from the Kyiv region earlier this year when they failed to take the capital.
\nThe group of Russian forces around Izyum has been key for Moscow\u2019s effort to capture the Donetsk region, and their pullback will now dramatically weaken the Russian capability to press its offensive there.
\nThe retreat drew angry comments from Russian military bloggers, who bemoaned it as a major defeat and urged the Kremlin to respond by stepping up war efforts. Many scathingly criticized Russian authorities for continuing with fireworks and other lavish festivities in Moscow that marked a city holiday on Saturday despite the debacle in Ukraine.
\nJust as the Russian forces were hastily pulling back from Izyum under Ukrainian fire, Russian President Vladimir Putin attended the opening of a huge observation wheel at a Moscow park, a new transport link and a sports arena.
\nThe action underlined the Kremlin\u2019s effort to continue pretending that the war it calls a \u201cspecial military operation\u201d was going according to plan without affecting the situation in the country.
\nIn a sign of potential rift in the Russian leadership, Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, said that the retreat from the Kharkiv region resulted from the Russian military leadership\u2019s blunders.
\n\u201cThey have made mistakes and I think they will draw the necessary conclusions,\u201d Kadyrov said. \u201cIf they don\u2019t make changes in the strategy of conducting the special military operation in the next day or two, I will be forced to contact the leadership of the Defense Ministry and the leadership of the country to explain the real situation on the ground.
\nUkrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said in televised comments Saturday that the Russians have been cut off from supply lines and predicted more gains.
\n\u201cIt will be like an avalanche,\u201d he said, predicting a Russian fallback. \u201cOne line of defense will shake, and it will fall.\u201d
\nDespite Ukraine\u2019s gains, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the head of NATO warned Friday that the war would likely drag on for months. Blinken said the conflict was entering a critical period and urged Ukraine\u2019s Western backers to keep up their support through what could be a difficult winter.
\nIn another major development Sunday, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe\u2019s largest, was reconnected to Ukraine\u2019s electricity grid, allowing engineers to shut down its last operational reactor in an attempt to avoid a radiation disaster as fighting rages in the area.
\nFor several previous days, the plant was operating in \u201cisland mode\u201d with just one of its six-reactors working to power cooling systems and other crucial equipment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ukrainian forces were working to wrest control of towns and villages around the strategic hub of Izyum KYIV Ukrainian forces on Sunday pushed its counteroffensive in the country\u2019s east, exploiting quick gains they made in a week of fighting that has sharply changed the course of the conflict. Ukraine\u2019s quick action to reclaim Russia-occupied areas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282891,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-282876","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n