The Armed Forces of Ukraine continue the counter-offensive, thanks to which they managed to recapture almost the entire Kharkiv region, occupied by Russia. The Insider has collected the main thing about the situation in the region and at the front to this hour.
On the morning of September 16, the center of Russian-occupied Kherson came under fire. The state agency RIA Novosti claims that at least five HIMARS rockets fell near the administration building when a meeting of the "heads" of administrations and districts came there. The pro-Russian administration of the region writes that as a result of a missile strike, the head of the labor department was wounded, and her driver died.
Pro-Russian officials and the media report on the murder of Oleg Boyko, deputy head of the "administration" of Berdyansk for housing and communal services, and his wife Lyudmila. Boyko went over to the side of Russia when the country occupied the Zaporozhye region. Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-appointed member of the “administration” of the Zaporozhye region, claims that Boyko’s wife headed the so-called city election commission for holding a “referendum”. He posted a picture of Boyko and his wife with black ribbons.
In addition, the pro-Russian media reported that the Prosecutor General of the so-called LPR, Sergei Gorenko, and his deputy, Yekaterina Steglenko, died in an explosion in their own office in the building of the Lugansk Prosecutor General's Office. The head of the "LPR" Leonid Pasechnik called the incident a "terrorist attack" and said that law enforcement officers were looking for those involved in the explosion. The Ukrainian authorities did not comment on the information.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that today almost the entire Kharkiv region has been de-occupied.
“The Russian army has been in the Kharkov region for more than five months. And during this time, the invaders did not even try to do anything for the people. Just destroyed, deprived, taken away. They left behind devastated villages, and in some of them there is not a single whole house. Russia can bring nothing but genocide.”
The President published photos showing the consequences of the war.
The Ukraine War Map Twitter account has published maps that are up-to-date as of September 16.
According to these data, the Armed Forces of Ukraine were able to de-occupy the village of Dibrova in the Limansky district of the Donetsk region and regained control over the village of Spornoe southeast of Seversk (Bakhmutsky district of the Donetsk region). Russian units that had previously been south of Izyum and did not have time to retreat before the capture of the city, probably surrendered.
The Russian-appointed deputy head of the “administration” of the Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, told RIA Novosti that the Ukrainian units were in a tactical encirclement in the Kherson direction.
“In the Ingulets River, the water level has risen, violating the crossings erected by Ukrainian troops from the right to the left bank near the borders of the Kherson region. Now they are actually left without supplies and found themselves in a tactical environment, pressed to the water. They have a plight there,” Stremousov says.
As a result of Russian attacks on Krivoy Rog, the water level in the Ingulets River really rose . However, the Ukrainian authorities did not comment on Stremousov's statement.
On September 16, Russian troops shelled Krivoy Rog again, said Alexander Vilkul, head of the administration of Krivoy Rog. According to him, work is underway at the city's hydraulic structures to eliminate the consequences of missile strikes, and now the water supply has been stabilized. On September 16, the city of Nikopol, the Krasnogrigoryevskaya and Marganets communities came under fire from Gradov and heavy artillery. Vilkul added that a 57-year-old woman was injured in Nikopol, 11 multi-storey and private houses, a lyceum, a kindergarten, a social service center, as well as several enterprises and gas pipelines were damaged. He urged residents not to film or post anything on social media.
The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine announced new shelling in several areas. Thus, the Russian Federation continues shelling the Krivoy Rog and Nikopol regions in the Dnipropetrovsk region. In this regard, a pre-trial investigation of criminal proceedings has been launched on the fact of violation of the laws and customs of war (Part 1, Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
According to investigators, on the night of September 16, Russian servicemen fired artillery from MLRS on Nikopol: private and multi-storey residential buildings, a lyceum building, a kindergarten, a social service center, a cultural and entertainment center, power lines and a gas pipeline were damaged. A local resident was injured. Also on September 15, the Russian Federation shelled the village of Bolshaya Kostromka, Krivoy Rog district, from cannon artillery, and private households were damaged. A local resident suffered in the Apostolic community. The man put the found cluster munition in the trunk of the car, when it detonated, he received shrapnel wounds and was hospitalized.
September 10 became one of the most important days of the war. From the very morning, messages began to appear on social networks that Ukraine had returned under its control not only towns and villages, but also large cities – Izium, Kupyansk and Liman. In just a few days, the Ukrainian military was able to liberate almost the entire Kharkiv region, which Russian troops occupied in the spring. In total, Ukraine returned 6,000 km² of territory under its control. Read more about how the counter-offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine began in the Kharkiv direction in The Insider online.