
The Ukrainian military’s General Staff said in a statement Monday “the liberation of settlements from the Russian invaders in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions continues,” stating Russian forces were dislodged from more than 20 settlements in the past day alone.
The last week has seen Ukrainian forces roll through lines of Russian defenses and recapture more than 3,000 square kilometers of territory. Over the weekend, the Russian retreat continued from border areas that had been occupied since March. Villages within five kilometers of the border were raising the Ukrainian flag.
“In the Luhansk region, the Russian military and their families left the town of Svatove, only the soldiers of the so-called ‘people's militia’ from among the local residents remained,” the statement said. Svatove has been an important hub on Russian resupply routes to the front lines further south - along the borders of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
In a separate statement Monday, Serhiy Hayday, Head of Luhansk’s regional military administration said: “The enemy has not organized any measures for evacuation - everyone escapes on their own”.
Meanwhile, Russian forces “suffered significant losses” in manpower, including the 810th Separate Brigade of Marines losing almost 85% of its personnel, as part of Ukraine’s actions in the Kherson direction, the General Staff statement said.
Russia’s 810th Separate Brigade of Marines is permanently based in Sevastopol, part of the Black Sea Fleet. “The rest of the servicemen have an extremely low morale and psychological state, they massively refuse to return to the combat zone,” it added.
CNN cannot independently verify the Ukrainian accounts.
Some context: Power has been restored in the Dnipropetrovsk region and 80% of the electricity and water supply is restored in Kharkiv region, local officials said Monday.
It comes after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said large parts of eastern Ukraine, including the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, were without electricity following Russian missile strikes on Sunday.