Russia-Ukraine war: Ukrainian forces make gains in three areas of Kherson in counter-offensive

Ukrainian regional officials said Wednesday that its forces have succeeded in three areas of the occupied Kherson region in its counter-offensive. The gains came after Kyiv announced that Ukraine was launching its counter-offensive to retake its southern territory.

Speaking with Ukraine’s national broadcaster, Kherson regional council deputy head Yuriy Sobolevskyi said Ukrainian troops had made gains in Kherson, Beryslav, and Kakhovka districts.

Sobolevskyi also urged Ukrainians to support their military with “everything they could” as the counter-offensive was using up a significant amount of resources.

“Now is the time to support our armed forces…Now is not the time to talk about the specific successes of our lads,” said Sobolevskyi, referring to the Ukrainian military’s insistence on a near-total information blackout regarding the offensive. “Right now, drones and ammunition are being used there like expendable material.”

Meanwhile, the European Union’s foreign ministers agreed Wednesday that Russians would face higher fees and a lengthier process to obtain EU visas. However, the ministers stopped short of implementing a widespread visa ban that Ukraine and other European countries that are part of the bloc have called for.

The bloc was left divided on the issue but left unclear on what measures the countries that all share a land border with Russia: Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland would take to restrict access to Russians. The five countries welcomed the suspension of Russia’s visa facilitation agreement.

However, four of the five countries stressed that more needed to be done to “drastically” limit the visas being issued to Russians travelling to the bloc since the war that began in February.

“Until such measures are in place on the EU level, we…will consider introducing on the national level, temporary measures of visa ban, or restricting border crossing for Russian citizens holding EU visas in order to address imminent public security issues,” said Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland in a joint statement.

Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky said the EU’s executive commission would look into ways to go further, including what could be done with what Lipavsky described as 12 million Schengen visas that are already issued for Russians.