Ukrainian forces retake Russian-held territory near Kharkiv

A man walks over debris of a psychiatric hospital that was heavily damaged after a Russian attack in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

A man walks in a corridor of a psychiatric hospital that was heavily damaged after a Russian attack in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

A bed is seen covered with shattered glass from a broken window of a psychiatric hospital that was heavily damaged after a Russian attack in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

A view of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant and the Dnipro river on the other side of Nikopol, Ukraine on Aug, 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces in the northeastern Kharkiv region have retaken portions of Russian-held territory there as a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south has drained some of Moscow's resources in the area, according to a report released Wednesday.

Ukrainian forces in the Kharkiv region are “likely exploiting Russian force reallocation” to areas near the occupied city of Kherson in the south “to conduct an opportunistic yet highly effective counteroffensive” in the province, Washington-based think tank Institute for the Study of War said.

Ukrainian forces likely used “tactical surprise” to advance at least 12 miles (20 kilometers) into Russian-held territory in the Kharkiv region on Wednesday, recapturing approximately 155 square miles (400 square kilometers) of ground, the report said.

Vitaly Ganchev, the Moscow-backed mayor of the town of Kupiansk in a Russian-occupied area of the Kharkiv region, said Thursday that authorities had begun evacuating women and children from the town and nearby areas because of relentless Ukrainian shelling.

In his nightly video address on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also reported success in the Kharkiv region but didn't provide details on its scope.

“This week we have good news from the Kharkiv region. You have probably already seen reports about the activity of Ukrainian defenders, and I think every citizen feels proud of our warriors,” Zelenskyy said.

The gains came as Ukraine continued to mount a counteroffensive in the southern Kherson region, where the Ukrainian military is trying to retake territory from the Russians and has claimed the recapture of an unspecified number of towns.

Ukraine’s ongoing operations near Kherson have forced Russian forces to shift their focus to the south, the Institute for the Study of War report said, enabling Ukrainian forces to launch localized but highly effective counterattacks near Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city.

Zelenskyy's presidential adviser, Oleksiy Arestovych, also spoke of Ukrainian gains near Kharkiv late Wednesday, saying they would help disrupt supplies to Russian forces in the area and potentially lead to their encirclement.

Meanwhile, tensions continued to simmer around Europe's largest nuclear power plant where Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of threatening a nuclear disaster by shelling near the facility.

The towns of Nikopol and Marhanets, which face the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant across the Dnieper river, had come under Russian shelling overnight that left apartment buildings, a school, some industrial facilities and power lines damaged, said Valentyn Reznichenko, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk province.

“The nuclear threat isn’t abating because of Russia’s mad actions and we need to consider all possible scenarios, including the worst one,” Reznichenko said in televised remarks.

The head of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, has warned that “something very, very catastrophic could take place” at the Zaporizhzhia plant and urged Russia and Ukraine to establish a “nuclear safety and security protection zone” around it.

The fear is that the fighting could trigger a disaster on the scale of the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk urged residents of Russian-occupied areas near the power plant to evacuate, adding that Ukrainian authorities have urged the Russians to set up humanitarian corridors to evacuate local residents but received no response.

“The Russians are continuing to blackmail the Ukrainians and the entire world,” Vereshchuk said. “The Russian state engages in nuclear terrorism, setting the first such precedent in the history of mankind.”

Ukraine’s Enerhoatom company that oversees the country’s nuclear plants said that the Zaporizhzhia plant’s workers were continuing repair works on Thursday to restore at least one of seven power lines to the plant, which has continued to operate with only one of six reactors operating to power the cooling system’s pumps.

Enerhoatom’s chief Petro Kotin said that the IAEA’s proposals to improve safety at the plant can only be implemented if Russian troops leave and are replaced by a peacekeeping contingent.

IN OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:

— Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed agreement on Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s complaint that most of the grain from Ukraine's reopened ports have gone to richer parts of the world. Putin said this week that practically all of the grain exported from Ukraine under a deal brokered by Ankara and the United Nations that lifted Russia’s blockade on Ukrainian ports had gone to European Union nations instead of poorer countries. Speaking in Zagreb, Croatia, on the last day of his three-day Balkan tour, Erdogan said that Turkey wished for the grain “to be delivered to really poor countries,” and urged the shipment of food and fertilizers from Russia to begin soon.

— Norway said Thursday it will donate approximately 160 Hellfire missiles to Ukraine as well as launching pads and guidance units. During a meeting in Germany, Norwegian Defense Minister Bjørn Arild Gram said his country would also supply Ukraine with night vision equipment, adding that Kyiv had requested the weapons.

— The chief of the Ukrainian military, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyy, acknowledged in an article published Wednesday that explosions and fires at air bases in the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula last month were caused by a “successful series of rocket strikes on Crimean air bases.” It marked the first official acknowledgement of responsibility for the attacks by Ukrainian authorities. Zaluzhnyy gave no details of the attacks.

— Ukraine’s presidential office said that at least 10 people were killed and another 15 were wounded by Russian shelling over the last 24 hours.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine