Ukrainian military installed the state flag on Velykyi Potomkinskyi Island near the Dnipro River’s delta in Kherson Oblast, but “it is too early to talk about liberation,” the Southern Operational Command spokeswoman Nataliia Humeniuk said on Jan. 3.
The statement came following media reports that Ukraine recaptured the island.
“Establishing the flag signals to the enemy that we are working, that the land is ours, that this is all Ukraine. And it is also a reminder to them of the irreversibility of the processes we have planned. But it is too early to talk about liberation,” Humeniuk said on television.
According to her, politicians’ statements about the liberation of certain territories “can have a very significant impact on the further development of military operations.”
Earlier on Jan. 2, online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda and lawmaker Oleksiy Honcharenko reported that Ukraine’s Armed Forces had liberated the Velykyi Potomkinskyi Island.
The island is located between the west and east banks of the Dnipro River near the city of Kherson, which was liberated by the Ukrainian military on Nov. 11 after eight months of Russian occupation.
