Ukraine Raises Flag in Liberated Village, Touts Cutoff of Russian Supplies

A Ukrainian flag has been raised in a recently liberated village in the Kharkiv region as the country’s eastern counteroffensive against Russian forces continues to see success, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said.

The agency shared to Twitter on Tuesday a video showing a soldier standing on a Russian flag that had been taken down before raising a Ukrainian flag in the village of Kupyansk-Vuzlovy. Ukraine mentioned the strategic importance of retaking the village, saying that it contains one of eastern Ukraine’s largest rail stations.

“The village of Kupyansk-Vuzlovy in the Kharkiv region is liberated,” the ministry tweeted. “One of the largest railway stations in the east of Ukraine is located there. The occupiers used it in their supply route. The offensive in the Kharkiv region continues.”

Oleg Synegubov, head of Ukraine’s Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, said that Russia seized control of the village and the rail station within hours of launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, according to Ukrainska Pravda.

“Kupyansk-Vuzlovy [was] one of the biggest logistical railway routes on the territory of Kharkiv Oblast,” Synegubov reportedly said during a Ukrainian television appearance. “Thanks to a successful military operation, the Armed Forces of Ukraine took the route back under their control and now control it completely.”

Reclaiming the village and the station is one many successes that the Ukrainian military has recently reported in the eastern counteroffensive that launched this month, about one week after a counteroffensive in the southern Kherson region began in late August.

Only 6 percent of the Kharkiv region reportedly remained under Russian control as of Tuesday. Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said that a total of 454 settlements in Kharkiv had been liberated.

Synegubov said that liberating territory near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, “costs a lot of effort because [Russia] doesn’t retreat and is constantly trying to regroup and deploy reserves.” Nine people were reportedly killed, with five others injured, during Russian attacks in the Kharkiv region on Monday.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine shared a video to Facebook on Tuesday that it claims shows 15 Russian soldiers including two majors being captured in a wooded area near Kharkiv.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “partial mobilization” of troops last week that could see up to 300,000 Russian reservists soon entering the war.

Some experts have suggested that the new troops will be of “low quality” and make little difference in the Russian war effort due to “serious and systemic problems” within the Russian military.

Newsweek has reached out to the Russian government for comment.