Zelenskyy warns Russian forces amid southern Ukraine offensive
Al JazeeraPresident Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine offensive under way to retake southern region, urges Russians to leave. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Russian soldiers to flee for their lives after his forces launched an offensive to retake southern Ukraine, but Moscow said it had repulsed the attack and inflicted heavy losses on Kyiv’s troops. In response, Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that Russia was methodically pressing on with its plans in Ukraine, adding: “All of our goals will be reached.” The Ukrainian counterattack comes after several weeks of relative deadlock in a war that has killed thousands, displaced millions, destroyed cities and fuelled a global energy and food crisis amid unprecedented Western economic sanctions on Russia. Russia captured large tracts of southern Ukraine near the Black Sea coast in the early weeks of the six-month-old war, including in the Kherson region, which lies north of the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula. Nuclear plant in focus More heavy Russian shelling of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, was also reported and at least five people were killed and seven wounded, Mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on the Telegram messaging app.