Kyiv: Ukranian forces stepped up the surge advancing rapidly along the Dnipro River on Monday, threatening supply lines for thousands of Russian troops.

This is the biggest breakthrough Zelenskys military has achieved ever since the war began. There is no official confirmation about the retreat, however Russian sources acknowledged that a Ukrainian tank offensive had advanced dozens of kilometers along the river’s west bank, recapturing a number of villages along the way.

“The information is tense, let’s put it that way, because, yes there were indeed breakthroughs,” Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed leader in occupied parts of Ukraine’s Kherson province told Russian state television.

Just hours after a concert on Moscow’s Red Square on Friday where Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed the provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia to be Russian territory forever, Ukraine recaptured Lyman, the main Russian bastion in the north of Donetsk province.

Putin has been responding to Russia’s failures on the battlefield over the past month by escalating: proclaiming the annexation of occupied territory, calling up tens of thousands of men as reservists and threatening nuclear retaliation.