Oct 27 (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that Ukrainian forces were retaking territory through a series of offensives, including one operation previously unannounced in which Kyiv’s troops used gas pipelines to outflank Russian positions.
Zelenskiy, speaking in his nightly video address, said Kyiv’s battlefield position was the strongest in some time in the 4-1/2-year-long war and could be made stronger with more deliveries of air defence systems from its Western allies.
Zelenskiy, citing a report by senior commanders, noted for the first time the “Veles” operation using pipelines in Ukraine’s northeast. He also referred to an air assault operation in eastern Ukraine and the “Vivaldi” operation further to the north, designed to prevent Russian advances in key areas.
He said Operation Veles was conducted near Kupiansk, a city in northeastern Kharkiv region recaptured by Ukrainian forces in late 2022, but since under constant Russian pressure.
“It is a strong operation, well planned and technology-driven. The Russians tried to use underground gas pipelines to advance past our positions,” Zelenskiy said.
“Our fighters turned this tactic against the Russians and used the underground infrastructure against the occupiers with extraordinary success,” he said.
In the Vivaldi offensive, one senior commander reported last month that Ukraine’s Third Army Corps had cleared an area of 75 square kilometres (29 square miles) of Russian infiltration groups and recaptured a further 10 square kilometres.
That operation was focused to the north of the key strongholds in the region — the so-called “fortress belt” of the cities Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Their capture would bring Russia closer to its goal of seizing the entire Donbas region.
Zelenskiy in August spoke of success in an offensive further south, with 26 villages being returned to Ukrainian control.
Russia says it favours an overall resolution of the war rather than a short-lived ceasefire and has pledged to pursue its drive to capture all of Donbas.
Russian commanders repeatedly say, often in announcements in President Vladimir Putin’s presence, that their forces are advancing on all sections of the 1,200-km (750-mile) front line.
The chief of Russia’s General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, said this month that Moscow’s forces had captured 92 Ukrainian settlements, including the town of Dobropillia, since the beginning of September.
Ukraine’s military dismissed the Russian statements.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Oleksandr Kozhukhar; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
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