"We return territories": Ukraine's 3rd assault brigade announces offensive in Kharkiv region

The message was posted on the Third Assault Brigade's Telegram channel.

‘As a result of the counterattack, the brigade took control of the occupiers' battalion defence area, enemy platoon and company strongholds and advanced deep into the front by almost 2 km sq.The ratio of forces on the battlefield: 2.5 to 1 in favor of the enemy. Plus enemy support forces,’ the statement said.

The brigade added that in four days, the Russian army lost three hundred soldiers in action, and a significant amount of equipment and weapons were destroyed or damaged.

‘The main task of the operation was to bring down the offensive potential of the 20th Army of the Russian Federation. At the moment, this task has been fulfilled,’ said the brigade commander, Colonel Andriy Biletsky. 

He added that the uniqueness of the operation was that the Ukrainian military attacked an enemy that outnumbered them and won. 

‘The success depended on detailed planning, non-standard solutions, coordinated work of artillery, air defense, and intelligence. But the heroes of the battlefield were tankers, sappers, scouts and, above all, assault troops,’ added the brigade commander. 

The brigade's assault operations helped to divert the enemy's attack from the direction of Makiivka and relieved tension in other critical areas of the front in the areas of neighboring brigades. 

‘Now the occupants are intensifying the use of aviation, MLRS and long-range artillery. The enemy is trying to regain the lost areas. But the Third Assault Brigade is holding its ground,’ the brigade stressed.

Earlier today, on August 22, the deputy commander of the 3rd Brigade, Maksym Zhorin, released a video of the fighting and reported ‘good news in his area’.

‘Successful offensive actions were carried out in the area of responsibility of our Third Assault Brigade in Kharkiv region,’ he wrote.