Ukraine liberates village in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, military claims
Ukrainian troops have liberated the village of Mali Shcherbaky in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Ukraine's 24th Separate Assault Battalion "Aidar" announced on Oct. 12.
According to the statement, units of the Aidar Battalion, together with the 33rd Separate Assault Regiment raised the Ukrainian flag over Mali Shcherbaky.
"The settlement is under the control of the Ukrainian Defense Forces," the battalion said, releasing footage purportedly showing Ukrainian soldiers in the village.
The Kyiv Independent could not verify the claim.
Mali Shcherbaky lies in the Orikhiv sector in Ukraine's southeastern Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Russian troops advanced toward the settlement in early summer. Since then, it had remained either in a contested grey zone or under Russian control, according to the open-source battlefield monitoring group DeepState.
It remains unclear when exactly the village was liberated. The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces rarely confirms the loss of territory to Russian forces.
In early September, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said that Russian forces had planned to launch a major offensive in the Zaporizhzhia direction but Ukrainian troops prevented the operation.
Moscow currently occupies about 70% of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, but the regional capital, Zaporizhzhia, remains under Ukrainian control.
Over the past month, Ukrainian forces have been pushing back Russian troops who had advanced 15-20 kilometers (6 miles) toward the strategic Dobropillia–Kramatorsk highway, near the contested city of Pokrovsk.
In the meantime, Russian forces continue pushing into the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk Oblast though Syrskyi called the presence of Russian troops there merely "declarative."
