KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian troops pushed forward Monday with their offensive that has embarrassed Moscow, with Kyiv officials and foreign observers hinting at new gains in the strategic southern region of Kherson that the Kremlin wants to annex.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that two of those regions, Donetsk and Luhansk, are joining Russia with their administrative borders that existed before a conflict erupted there in 2014 between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces. He noted that the issue of the borders of the two other regions — Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — remains open.
The Ukrainian military has successfully used U.S.-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers to repeatedly hit the main bridge across the Dnieper in the city of Kherson and a dam that served as a second main crossing. It also has struck pontoon bridges that Russia has used to supply its troops on the western bank of the river after the main crossings were made inoperable.
Russia attacked Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy's hometown and other targets Sunday with suicide drones, and Ukraine took back full control of a strategic eastern city in a counteroffensive that has reshaped the war. In his nightly address Sunday, Zelenskyy discussed the recent liberation of Lyman, a key Russian node for logistics on the front line in the northeast.
Those two villages are in the same area where Ukrainian troops have been making advances. A photo emerged at the weekend showing Ukrainian forces' operation southwest of Novovorontsovka on the banks of the Dnieper River.
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