Meanwhile, Russia says it is dispatching reinforcements to the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine where Kyiv’s forces have announced robust gains as part of a broader counter-offensive.
A Moscow-installed official in the region, Vitaliy Ganchev, said that “fierce battles” were under way near the town of Balakliya that Ukraine said it had recaptured.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says since September 1, Ukrainian troops “liberated dozens of settlements” and reclaimed territory in the east and south.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has $2billion in security aid during a trip to Kyiv, hoping to bolster Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
Ukraines advance in the Kharkiv region has been “very sharp and rapid” and Ukrainian forces have recaptured a number of settlements, the Russian-installed administrator of Russian-controlled parts of the region stated in a live online broadcast.