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Russia Expels Lithuania's Charge d'Affaires In Tit-For-Tat Move [1]
['Rfe Rl']
Date: 2022-10
Ukrainian forces continued to make advances into several areas that Russia has declared as its own, raising doubts about Moscow's capacity to control those territories even as the Kremlin vowed to reoccupy them, saying those regions will be Russian "forever."
"The given territories will be taken back," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on October 5 after President Vladimir Putin signed the decree incorporating them into Russia.
To add to Russia's woes, the United States pledged $625 million in additional military aid to Kyiv, drawing a stern response from Moscow, which warned that pouring more U.S. weapons into Ukraine fueled the danger of a direct military clash between Russia and the West.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly address on October 4 that his forces had made "rapid and powerful" gains in southern Ukraine and recaptured "dozens" of villages from Russia this week.
"The Ukrainian Army is quite rapidly and powerfully advancing in the south," Zelenskiy said.
He said some of the territory was taken back in the regions of Kherson, Luhansk, and Donetsk, which together with Zaporizhzhya make up the four regions of Ukraine where referendums that Kyiv and the West denounced as a "sham" were held last month on joining Russia.
The areas claimed by Russia account for about 18 percent of Ukraine's territory.
The liberation of Luhansk, which is almost completely under Russian control, is well under way, the region's Ukrainian governor, Serhiy Hayday, said in a post on Telegram on October 5.
"Several settlements have already been liberated from the Russian troops, and Ukrainian armed forces are raising Ukrainian flags there...Luhansk is Ukraine," Hayday said.
The purported advances in Luhansk, which could not be independently confirmed, came after maps revealed by Moscow on October 4 showed that Russian troops had left many areas in Kherson, including along the west bank of the Dnieper River.
In the northeastern Kharkiv region, the maps indicated that Russian forces had almost entirely abandoned the east bank of the Oskil River, where British intelligence said Ukraine had now "consolidated" a substantial area.
Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, Russian protests, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.
"Ukrainian formations have advanced up to 20 km beyond the (Oskil) river into Russia's defensive zone towards the supply node of the town of Svatove," Britain's Ministry of Defense said in its daily intelligence bulletin.
"Russian leaders will highly likely be concerned that leading Ukrainian units are now approaching the borders of Luhansk Oblast, which Russia claimed to have formally annexed [on September 30]," British intelligence suggested.
Russia struck back on October 5, when one person was wounded in an attack with Iranian-made drones on the town of Bila Tserkva, southwest of Kyiv, the region's governor said.
"During the night, the enemy carried out strikes with Shahed-136-type kamikaze drones against Bila Tserkva," Oleksiy Kuleba said on social media, adding that the attack left one person wounded and damaged infrastructure.
The previous day, Russian troops again struck the energy infrastructure of Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. Russian forces are purposefully destroying transformers in order to cut off electricity and prevent people from having a normal life, he said.
In Moscow, Putin on October 5 signed laws absorbing into Russia the four regions that Moscow only partially controls, a move that finalizes the seizure carried out in defiance of international law, after earlier this week, both houses of the Russian parliament ratified the takeover.
Asked if there was a contradiction between Putin's gesture and the reality of retreat on the ground, Peskov said, "There is no contradiction whatsoever. They will be with Russia forever and they will be returned" to Russian control.
On October 4, U.S. President Joe Biden told Zelenskiy in a phone call that the United States will provide Kyiv with $625 million in new security assistance.
The assistance will include more high-mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS), ammunition, and armored vehicles, a White House statement said.
Biden "pledged to continue supporting Ukraine as it defends itself from Russian aggression for as long as it takes," the statement said.
The U.S. president also affirmed that the United States is prepared “to impose severe costs on any individual, entity, or country that provides support to Russia’s purported annexation.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that the $625 million in aid will bring the total U.S. military assistance for Ukraine to more than $17.5 billion since the beginning of the Biden administration.
Zelenskiy thanked Biden and the American people for "continued defense and financial support."
"I enjoyed hearing President Biden say that our military inspires the world, our people inspire the world," he added.
WATCH: Ukrainian volunteers check the corpses of Russian soldiers for booby traps as they clear the area after fighting around freshly liberated Lyman.
Russia reacted furiously to the announcement of extra U.S. military aid.
On the Telegram messaging app, Ambassador Anatoly Antonov urged Washington to stop "provocative actions" that could lead to "serious consequences."
With reporting by Reuters, AFP, RFE/RL's Russian Service
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