Launching Balit Attacks In The South, Ukraine Claims Successfully Break Through Russia's Defense In Hours

Ukrainian military illustration. (Wikimedia Commons/Ministry of Defense of Ukraine)

JAKARTA - Ukraine said it managed to break through Russian defensive lines in several places in the southern city of Kherson, while launching a counter-attack campaign to retake the territory sitting on the enemy. Meanwhile, Russia claims Kyiv's retaliatory attacks failed.

Kyiv's move comes after weeks of stalemate, in a war that has killed thousands, millions of displaced people, destroyed cities and caused a global energy and food crisis amid unprecedented economic sanctions.

"I have to record that today's defense (Russia) has been breached within hours," said Oleksify Arestovych, senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Ukrainian troops opened fire on the ferries used by Moscow to supply Russia's occupied territory on the west bank of the Dnipro river in the Kherson region, he added.

Separately, Russia's Defense Ministry said earlier on Monday Ukrainian troops had attempted to carry out attacks on the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, but suffered significant casualties, RIA news agency reported.

"Ensistent offensive efforts failed miserably," the report said.

However, a series of Ukrainian rockets leaving Russia's occupied city of Nova Kakhovka without water or electricity, officials at Russia's appointed local authorities told RIA news agency.

Reuters was unable to independently verify reports of battlefields.

Russia's new shooting of Mykolaiv, which remains in Ukraine's hands despite repeated Russian bombings during the war, killed at least two people, injured about 24 others and destroyed houses, city officials and witnesses said on Monday.

Earlier, Ukraine's southern command said on Monday its troops had begun offensive measures in some direction south, including in the Kherson region located north of the Russian annexed Crimean peninsula.

Ukraine has struck more than 10 locations in the past week and "undeniably weakened the enemy", according to a spokesman who declined to provide details of the attack, saying Russian troops in the south remained "strong enough".