Confirms To Reclaim Russian-Occupied Territory, President Zelensky: We Will Take All Our Own

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. (Source: president.gov.ua)

JAKARTA - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ensured the mental state of his troops did not collapse, saying they would return to retake Russian-occupied territories after the fighting shifted from Kyiv to the east to the south.

Western weapons have helped Ukrainian troops advance 10 km (6 miles) towards Russian-occupied Melitopol in southern Ukraine, its mayor said in a video posted on Telegram from outside the city.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has been gathering residents with daily video messages said he had visited troops in the southern Mykolaiv region, about 550 km (340 miles) south of Kyiv.

"Their mood is assured: they all have no doubts about our victory," he said in a video on Sunday.

"We will not give the south to anyone, and we will take all our possessions back," he stressed.

As for the Mykolaiv and Odesa regions, President Zelensky said he had heard reports of devastation from the Russian offensive.

"The loss is significant. Many houses were destroyed, and civilian logistics were disrupted," he said.

As previously reported, Russia announced it had captured a village near the Ukrainian industrial city of Sievierodonetsk, a key target in Moscow's campaign for control of the country's east, on Sunday, with the head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) estimating the war could last for years.

Russia's Defense Ministry said it had won Metyolkine, a settlement of less than 800 people before the war started. Russia's state news agency TASS reported that many Ukrainian fighters had surrendered there.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's military said Russia had "partial success" in the area, which is about six kilometers (four miles) southeast of Sievierdonetsk.

Having failed to capture the capital Kyiv early in the war, Russian forces have focused on trying to take complete control of the Donbas, parts of which had been held by Russian-backed separatists before the February 24 invasion.

In Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv, northwest of Lugansk, Russia's Defense Ministry said its Iskander missiles had destroyed weapons recently supplied by Western countries.

Russian troops are trying to get close to Kharkiv, which suffered intense shelling early in the war, and turn it into a 'front line city', an official said.

"Russia is trying to make Kharkiv a frontline city," Vadym Denysenko, an adviser to the interior minister, told Ukrainian national television.

Russia says it has launched what it calls a "special military operation" to disarm its neighbors and protect Russian-speakers there from dangerous nationalists. Kyiv and its allies reject it as a baseless pretext for a war of aggression.