Ukrainian forces have seized 46 towns in the strategic southern region of Kherson as part of their counter-offensive, the local governor said on Monday.

“To date, 46 occupied towns have been liberated in the Kherson region,” Kherson region governor Dmytro Boutry told state television.

According to him, these villages are located in the northern part of the region, on the border with the Dnipropetrovsk region, and in the southern part on the border with the heavily bombed Mykolaiv region. Some of the recovered villages “have been 90% destroyed and are still under constant fire.”

The humanitarian situation in the region is “critical,” the governor also declared, reiterating the authorities’ call for those who remain in the region to “evacuate to safer regions.”

Ukrainian counteroffensive

During the first days of the invasion launched on February 24, Russian troops seized practically all of this strategic border region with Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014. But in recent weeks, the Ukrainian army, reinforced with long-range artillery deliveries supplied by the West, he launched a counteroffensive.

Kyiv forces carried out attacks on warehouses and Russian military positions and damaged bridges that serve as crucial supply routes for Moscow troops in the city of Kherson.

Last month, a Ukrainian official promised that Ukrainian forces would take the Kherson region in September. Russian forces captured the region’s capital, Kherson, on March 3. It was the first major city to fall to the Russians after the invasion began.