Ukraine said to recapture several villages, as Russia hits Kharkiv nuclear facility
Poltavka and Malynivka ‘successfully liberated,’ Ukraine says; man detained on suspicion of espionage in Lviv; Russia detains Slavutych mayor, sparking protests
Ukrainian forces managed to recapture two villages from Russia early Sunday, according to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia regional military administration.
The counterattack took place 103 kilometers (63 miles) northwest of the besieged city of Mariupol.
“The Melitopol Territorial Defense Battalion, together with other units of the Zaporizizhia Defense Forces, have successfully liberated the villages of Poltavka and Malynivka east of Huliaipole from the Russian occupiers,” the administration said, according to CNN.
Satellite imagery indicated heavy fighting taking place in the two villages in the past day.
Separately, a Ukrainian counterattack that began on Friday near Kharkiv recaptured several villages, local officials said.
The communities are about 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of central Kharkiv.
Unverified videos posted online claim to show combat in one of the villages, called Vilkhivka.
Video of Ukrainian forces fighting for the town of Vilkhivka, Kharkiv Oblast.https://t.co/bs5ieMYfvZ pic.twitter.com/U9uMlQ0GpH
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) March 26, 2022
Earlier, Ukrainian officials said Russian forces fired on a nuclear research facility in Kharkiv.
The Ukrainian parliament, citing the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate, said, “It is currently impossible to estimate the extent of damage due to hostilities that do not stop in the area of the nuclear installation.”
Russian forces have been accused of risking nuclear disaster in Ukraine by attacking the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, and Chernobyl.

Meanwhile, the governor of Ukraine’s Lviv region said on Sunday a man was detained on suspicion of espionage at the site of one of the two rocket attacks that rattled the city on Saturday.
Maksym Kozytskyy said police found the man had recorded a rocket flying toward the target and striking it. Police also found on his telephone photos of checkpoints in the region, which Kozytskyy said had been sent to two Russian telephone numbers.
Rockets hit an oil storage facility and an unspecified industrial facility, wounding at least five people. A thick plume of smoke and towering flames could be seen on Lviv’s outskirts hours after the attacks.

Also on Saturday, Russian forces took control of a town where staff working at the Chernobyl nuclear site live and briefly detained the mayor, sparking protests, Ukrainian officials said.
“I have been released. Everything is fine, as far as it is possible under occupation,” Yuri Fomichev, mayor of Slavutych, told AFP by phone, after officials in the Ukraine capital Kyiv announced earlier he had been detained.
Another abduction!
Yesterday, the mayor of Slavutych (25,000 people) reported that Russian snipers entered the otherwise cutoff city. This morning, the city hall posted pictures of pro-???????? protests. Now, news are breaking that Russians kidnapped the mayor Yuri Fomichev. pic.twitter.com/flY3P5BxCf
— Mattia Nelles (@mattia_n) March 26, 2022
Earlier, the military administration of the Kyiv region, which covers Slavutych, announced that Russian troops had entered the town and occupied the municipal hospital. They also said that the mayor had been detained.
Residents took to the streets, carrying a large blue and yellow Ukrainian flag and heading towards the hospital, the administration said. Russian forces fired into the air and threw stun grenades into the crowd, it added.
It also shared on its Telegram account images in which dozens of people gathered around the Ukrainian flag and chanted: “Glory to Ukraine.”
In #Slavutych, local residents tell the #Russian invaders in which direction they should leave the city pic.twitter.com/aANHNysLZj
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 26, 2022
Later Saturday, Fomichev posted a video on Facebook saying that at least three people had died, without elaborating on what had happened.
“We haven’t yet identified all of them,” he added, but said that civilians were among the dead.
While they had defended their town, they were up against a larger force, he said.
The Chernobyl plant was taken by the Russian army on February 24, the same day that Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine.
Some 25,000 people live in the town 160 kilometers (99 miles) north of the capital, built after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident.