Russian Defenses are Breached in the South by Ukraine forces, Who advance in the East

Ukraine forces have breached Russian defenses in the country's south as they swiftly expand their attack in the east, taking back more land in Russian-annexed areas and endangering Russian troops' supply routes. According to Ukrainian officials and a Russian-installed authority in the region, Ukrainian forces recovered three villages on Monday in advance along the vital Dnipro River, marking their most significant success in the south since the start of the conflict. In a nighttime update, the southern operations command of the military reported that Ukrainian forces in the south had destroyed 31 Russian tanks and one multiple rocket launcher. Reuters did not immediately corroborate the battlefield accounts. Even as Russia has attempted to heighten the stakes by annexing land, demanding mobilization, and threatening nuclear retribution, the southern breakthrough matches recent Ukrainian victories in the east. Two of the four Russian-occupied territories that Moscow last week seized after what it called referendums—votes that Kyiv and Western nations criticized as unlawful and coercive—have seen significant progress from Ukraine. Reuters observed columns of Ukrainian military vehicles moving on Monday to fortify the rail hub of Lyman, which had been retaken over the weekend, and a staging area to press into the Donbas region, indicating that Ukraine is gaining ground on the eastern front. President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that the Ukrainian army had taken back towns in several places without providing further information. "In many areas, new population centers have been freed. As a result, several frontal sectors are seeing intense combat, "According to Zelenskiy's video speech. A psychiatric hospital in the village of Ivanovo, a target on the way to retaking the critical cities of Lysychansk and Sivierodonetsk, has been taken over, according to Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of Luhansk, one of the two regions that make up the Donbas. They have set up defensive positions in the building's extensive network of underground compartments, and he told Ukrainian television. According to Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed leader in the seized portions of Ukraine's Kherson province, Ukrainian troops have retaken the town of Dudchany in the south along the west bank of the Dnipro River, which divides the nation. The front has advanced the fastest in the south of the conflict to Dudchany, about 30 kilometers south of where it was before Monday's breakthrough. Since the first few weeks of the invasion, Russian forces had been holed up in well-fortified positions along a largely stationary front line. Ukraine has not yet provided a comprehensive account of the events, but military and regional officials have released some information. According to a video provided by the defense ministry, members of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade of Ukraine raised their country's blue and yellow flag at Myrolyubivka, a town between the former front and the Dnipro. Serhiy Khlan, a councilor for the Kherson region, listed four other settlements that had been taken back or where the Ukrainian military had been spotted. He explained that our armed troops were advancing forcefully along the Dnipro River's banks toward Beryslav. Reuters could not independently verify the developments. ASSAULT ABILITY - The southern offensive aims to cut off supplies to 25,000 Russian forces stationed on the west bank of the Dnipro. The main bridges over the river have already been damaged by Ukraine, forcing Russian forces to use temporary bridges. A significant downstream advance could completely shut them off.  Oleh Zhdanov, a military analyst, based in Kyiv, stated that "the fact that we have broken through the front indicates that the Russian army has already lost the ability to attack, and today or tomorrow, it could lose the ability to defend." According to Celeste Wallander, a senior Pentagon official, Ukraine appears to be on track to accomplish several of its battlefield goals, providing it "a much better defensive position to ride out what undoubtedly will be a tamping down of the heated fighting during the winter." Ukraine retook Lyman, the critical Russian stronghold in the north of Donetsk province, just hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia to be Russian territory forever during a concert on Moscow's Red Square on Friday. A plan to end the war, put up by billionaire Elon Musk on Monday, included calling for U.N.-supervised elections in the four occupied territories and recognizing Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014.