Ukrainian army '50 kilometres from border' as counteroffensive continues

Ukrainian troops on Sunday successfully pressed their swift counteroffensive in the northeastern part of the country, forcing the Russian units into withdrawal.

Ukraine's quick action to reclaim Russia-occupied areas in the northeastern Kharkiv region forced Moscow troops to pull in a bid to prevent them from being surrounded and leave behind significant numbers of weapons and munitions in a hasty retreat as the war marked 200 days on Sunday.

The jubilant Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mocked the Russians in a video address late Saturday, saying that "the Russian army in these days is demonstrating the best that it can do — showing its back."

On Sunday, he posted a video of Ukrainian soldiers hoisting the national flag over Chkalovske, another town they reclaimed from the Russians in the counteroffensive.

Ukraine's military chief, General Valerii Zaluzhnyy, said Sunday that Ukraine had liberated about 3,000 square kilometres since the beginning of September. 

He noted that the Ukrainian troops are now just 50 kilometres away from the border with Russia.

The Russians' pullback marked the biggest battlefield success for Ukrainian forces since they thwarted a Russian attempt to seize the capital, Kyiv, at the start of the nearly seven-month war. 

Ukraine's attack in the Kharkiv region came as a surprise for Moscow, which had relocated many of its troops from the area to the south in expectation of the main Ukrainian counteroffensive there.

In an awkward attempt to save face, the Russian Defence Ministry said Saturday that the troops' withdrawal from Izyum and other areas in the Kharkiv region was intended to strengthen Russian forces in the neighbouring Donetsk region to the south.

The claim sounded similar to the