Ukraine ha rrecovered 53 settlements in the southern region of Kherson, mostly occupied by Russiasince the beginning of the war, informed this Tuesday the regional governor Dmytro Butriy. Moscow captured swaths of southern Ukraine in the first phase of its February 24 invasion.

kyiv is now committed to a major counteroffensive to take back the land and has used Western-made long-range weapons to attack Russian supply lines. “So far, 53 settlements have been confirmed liberated,” the official Butriy said on national television.

That figure was nine settlements more than the number reported on Monday, which seemed to indicate an accelerating pace of Ukrainian gains in the region. Also this Tuesday, Ukraine began the mandatory evacuation of the population from the areas it controls in the region of Donetsk.

“Mandatory evacuation of the Donetsk region has begun. The first train arrived at Kropyvnytskyi this Tuesday morning. Women, children, the elderly, many people with reduced mobility. Everyone was welcomed and accommodated, everyone received help », she expressed the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereschukreplied Reuters.

The start of the evacuation comes a day after the announcement of a new US military aid package worth 550 million dollars, which includes 75,000 shells for 155-millimeter howitzers and rockets for HIMARS launchers. In addition, the Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Oleksyi Reznikovreported the arrival in the country of multiple German MARS II rocket launchers.