Zelenskiy says Ukraine takes three settlements in south, east

(Reuters) -President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday marked progress in a counter-offensive Ukraine that started final week, thanking his forces for taking two settlements within the south, a 3rd within the east, in addition to further territory within the east of the nation.

He didn’t say exactly the place the territories have been and supplied no timeline besides to say that he had acquired “good reviews” at a gathering on Sunday from his navy commanders and head of intelligence.

In his nightly video tackle, Zelenskiy thanked his forces for liberating a settlement within the japanese Donetsk area, the taking of “sure heights” additionally in an japanese space within the Lysychansk-Siversk course and for liberating two southern settlements.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the president’s workplace, earlier on Sunday posted a picture of troopers elevating the Ukrainian flag over a village he labeled as being within the southern space that’s the predominant focus of the counter-offensive.

“Vysokopillya. Kherson area. Ukraine. As we speak,” Tymoshenko wrote in a Fb submit over a photograph of three troopers on rooftops, certainly one of them fixing a Ukrainian flag to a submit.

Situated simply north of the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow invaded and annexed in February and March 2014, the Kherson area was seized by Russian forces early within the present battle.

Lysychansk was claimed by pro-Russian separatists within the Luhansk area in early July as a part of a battle over the coalmining Donbas space in japanese Ukraine, which additionally contains Siversk.

(Reporting by Elaine Monaghan; Modifying by Lisa Shumaker and Mark Porter)