Ukraine has now taken back more than 50 percent of the territory it had ceded to Russian forces since Russia began its invasion in February, the Daily Mail reported on Tuesday, Nov. 15.
The article said that Ukrainian forces eventually pushed out Russian occupiers from Kyiv Region as the latter advanced deeper into the Donbas industrial region and poured into Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Region in the south and Kharkiv Region in the east of the country.
However, Russian forces in the north and east have been steadily driven back by a series of strategic counterattacks launched by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Around 18 percent of Ukraine is currently under Russian control, which includes Crimea and most of Donetsk and Luhansk Regions.
With Russian forces retreating recently from Kherson Region too, the Kremlin has begun to target civilian infrastructure, especially energy facilities, using Iranian-made drones and cruise missiles.
Most of these attacks on energy facilities have been carried out on Mondays, starting with a massive attack on Monday, Oct. 10, which have, according to President Zelensky, destroyed around 40 percent of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and causing rolling power outages, which still continue. The attacks have targeted other cities, including
Kharkiv, Vinnytsia, Rivne, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Chernihiv, Khmelnytsky, and Ivano-Frankivsk.
The Daily Mail underlines that the massive missile strike on Ukraine that took place on Tuesday, Nov. 15 began soon after President Zelensky, speaking to global leaders at the G20 summit in Bali via videolink, said he was willing to put an end to the war as long as Russia withdraws its forces from territories it currently holds.
This attack was, according to Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, a reaction to the president’s remarks, which increased pressure on Russia to halt its attacks.
“Does anyone seriously think that the Kremlin really wants peace? It wants obedience. But at the end of the day, terrorists always lose,” Yermak noted, the Daily Mail reported.
