KYIV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian military says it has brought soldiers across the Oskil River and formed a bridgehead that will enable its troops to press further into the eastern territories taken by Russia and reclaim lost territory.
“The Ukrainian armed forces have crossed the Oskil. As of yesterday, Ukraine also controls the left bank,” the press office of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in a video on Telegram on Sunday.
The video shows a tank crossing the river and being met by Ukrainian soldiers on the other bank.
Earlier, there were reports that Kyiv had secured control over the eastern part of the city of Kupyansk, which is divided by the Oskil river, although the information could not be independently verified.
Ukrainian forces in the Kharkiv region advanced to the Oskil River earlier this month during their counteroffensive at the beginning of September.
Moscow’s forces have repelled several Ukrainian attempts to cross the river, so the formation of a bridgehead on the east side of the Oskil would be a key strategic breakthrough for Kyiv, enabling troops to press on eastward toward the Luhansk region.
Russian troops seized control of Luhansk and are fighting for Donetsk, regions together known as the Donbas.
Donbas has long been a focus of Russia’s, with Russian-backed separatists running a parallel government in large parts of the region since 2014.
The military has not given any information about the exact location of the river crossing claimed by Kyiv. However, the U.S. Institute for the Study of the War said earlier that Ukrainian troops captured the eastern part of Kupyansk, a key city in the area bisected by the Oskil River.
Kupyansk is at the intersection of several railway lines and main roads so is seen as a strategically important supply route for Russian troops in the Donbas region.
The Ukrainian troops had conquered the western part of Kupyansk during their counteroffensive, while Russian troops had been entrenched in the industrial area on the river’s eastern bank.
So far, Kyiv has recaptured more than 3,700 square miles throughout southern and eastern Ukraine since early September in its counteroffensive, according to recent data.
However, residents in areas recently cleared of Russian troops say they are still coming under regular missile attacks.
Moscow is still shelling the Kharkiv region even after Russian troops withdrew from the area more than a week ago, according to Ukrainian sources.
Russia also subjected the liberated towns of Izyum and Chuhuiv to heavy shelling, destroying residential, commercial buildings, production facilities and petrol stations, Ukrainian regional governor Oleh Sinegubov said on Telegram.
Shelling in Chuhuiv killed an 11-year-old girl, while two women were killed by a tank shell in the region.
Sinegubov also said about 60 bodies had been recovered from the mass graves found recently in a forest near Izyum, most of whom were civilians. The dead also included numerous Ukrainian soldiers, he said. Most died violently, he said.
There were also signs that some were tortured, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, as teams continued to exhume the dead.
There are more than 440 bodies in Izyum, according to the Ukrainian authorities. Initial findings suggest the people died during heavy shelling by Russia at the end of March.
Izyum was captured by Russian troops at the end of March, but was recaptured in Kyiv’s counteroffensive.
But as Ukraine pushes back Moscow’s forces, Russia has also significantly increased attacks on civilian Ukrainian targets using long-range missiles over the past week, according to a British Defense Ministry analysis.
Areas hit include a dam in the industrial town of Kryvyi Rih, the ministry said, noting that such targets do not offer any immediate military gain.
Russia is likely to continue to increase such attacks to undermine the morale of the Ukrainian people and their government, given the setbacks Moscow is seeing on the front line, the ministry said.
As Moscow’s attacks continue, Kyiv ruled out negotiations and a meeting between Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy for the present, an official said on Sunday.
“The negotiation process itself and a face-to-face meeting between the presidents do not make sense at the moment,” the external adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office, Mykhailo Podolyak, said according to Ukrainian media.
He gave three reasons why talks would be pointless at this stage, starting with that Russia would try to hold on to and legitimize its territorial gains.
Secondly, maintaining the status quo would only serve to give Moscow breathing space to allow it to continue its attacks along the new lines of battle.
And thirdly, Russia must be held accountable for the crimes committed on Ukrainian territory. Negotiations would therefore only be possible once the Russian troops had withdrawn from Ukrainian territory, he said.
Alongside the return of its land, Ukraine is also calling for NATO membership, while Moscow has blamed Kyiv for seeking to join the defense alliance, calling this a threat to Russia.
In the U.S., former President Bill Clinton reflected on NATO’s eastward expansion after the fall of the Soviet Union, calling this the right move.
“We did the right thing at the right time. And if we hadn’t done it, this crisis might have occurred even sooner,” he told CNN.