As the war in Ukraine marks 200 days, the country has reclaimed broad swaths of the south and east in a long-anticipated counteroffensive that has dealt a heavy blow to Russia.
USAID Administrator Samantha Power told reporters that such moves will increase international and local trust in the government's intentions.
“Assistance alone would not put an end to this country's woes,” Power said. “I stressed to the Sri Lankan president in my meeting earlier today that political reforms and political accountability must go hand in hand with economic reforms and economic accountability.”
She said that international investor confidence will increase as the government tackles corruption and proceeds with long sought governance reforms. "As citizens see the government visibly following through on the commitment to bring about meaningful change, that in turn increases societal support for the tough economic reforms ahead,” she said.
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The counterattack began in the final days of August and at first focused on the southern region of Kherson, which was swept by Russian forces in the opening days of the invasion. But just as Moscow redirected attention and troops there, Ukraine launched another, highly effective offensive in the northeastern region of Kharkiv.
Facing the prospect of a large group of its forces becoming surrounded, Moscow ordered a troop pullback from Kharkiv, in a dramatic change of the state of play that posed the biggest challenge to the Kremlin since it launched the invasion Feb. 24.
A man who stalked CSI Miami actress Eva LaRue for over a decade, threatening to rape and kill both her and her daughter was sentenced to prison last week after the FBI caught him through DNA he left on fast food straw.
James David Rogers, 58, of Heath, Ohio, was sentenced on Thursday to 40 months in federal prison, according to a Department of Justice press release.
Russia’s military acknowledged on Saturday that it was withdrawing from Kupyansk and Izyum, saying it was regrouping forces to defend Donetsk, which Moscow sent irregular troops to seize in 2014.
Ukrainian troops took most of Kupyansk on Saturday, but the situation in Izyum couldn't be immediately determined. Despite Russia saying it was withdrawing, there was no evidence Ukrainian forces had penetrated to the center of the city, indicating that some Russian forces may be trapped there and fighting.
Since launching an offensive last week, Ukraine has made rapid-fire gains, taking back in a matter of days swaths of territory in the country’s east that Russians seized over the course of months.
“These days, the Russian army is showing its best side—its back,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a statement on his Telegram channel.
Ukraine’s flushing out of Russian forces from the western bank of the Oskil River relieves the pressure on the cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk to the south. The Ukrainian mayor of Lyman to the northeast of Slovyansk said late Saturday that Russia still held the city but that Ukrainian troops were fighting on the outskirts.
Russia had for months been advancing in Ukraine’s east after launching its invasion. After Ukraine repelled Russian forces from Kyiv, the capital, in spring, Moscow began leveling cities in the east with waves of artillery and air power. Russian troops then marched into the cities, sometimes fighting Ukrainian forces street by street to secure control.
But the grinding offensive against dogged Ukrainian resistance exhausted Russian troops. In July, Ukraine began striking Russian ammunition depots and command posts with long-range missiles provided by the U.S. Russia moved thousands of troops to the south of Ukraine as Kyiv touted an offensive there, leaving them stretched on the eastern front.
From March 2007 to June 2015, Rogers mailed about 37 handwritten and typed letters to LaRue's California home in which he threatened both LaRue and her daughter, it was revealed.
LaRue, 55, an actress also known for her longtime role on 'All My Children,' was midway through her second full season on 'CSI: Miami' when the first letter showed up at her house in 2007. Many more followed over the next 12 years.
'I am going to f**king stalk you until the day you die,' said one, according to a 2019 federal indictment of Rogers.
'There will be no place on this earth that I ... (can't) find you. I am going to rape you,' another letter read, as the stalker also threatened to rape and impregnate LaRue's daughter.
Each letter was signed with the name 'Freddie Krueger,' the fictional serial killer from the horror film series 'A Nightmare on Elm Street.'
Over the years, the FBI collected DNA from the envelopes but were not able to identify the culprit until 2019 with the help of genetic genealogy - the same method used to catch the Golden State Killer the previous year.
Ukraine's military says its forces have retaken over 3,000 sq km (1,158 sq miles) during a rapid counter-offensive in eastern Ukraine.
The remarkable advance, if confirmed, means Kyiv's forces have tripled their stated gains in little over 48 hours.
On Thursday evening, President Zelensky put the figure at 1,000 sq km, and then 2,000 sq km on Saturday evening.
The BBC cannot verify the Ukrainian figures, and journalists have been denied access to the frontlines.
On Saturday, the eastern counter-attack saw Ukrainian troops enter the vital Russian-held supply towns of Izyum and Kupiansk.
But UK defence officials have warned that fighting has continued outside those towns. And officials in Kyiv said Ukrainian forces were still fighting to gain control of a number of settlements around Izyum.
Russia's defence ministry confirmed its forces' retreat from Izyum itself and Kupiansk, which it said would allow its forces "to regroup" in territory held by Moscow-backed separatists.
The Russian ministry also confirmed the withdrawal of troops from a third key town, Balaklyia, in order to "bolster efforts" on the Donetsk front. Ukrainian forces entered the town on Friday.
At the same time, the head of the Russia-installed administration in the Kharkiv region recommended that its people evacuate to Russia "to save lives".
- Shock and joy in Ukraine's liberated villages
Unverified footage on social media appeared to show long queues of traffic building up at border crossings. The governor of the Belgorod border region in Russia, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said "thousands" of people had crossed into the country.
Mr Gladkov said on Saturday that mobile catering, heating, and medical assistance would be available to people fleeing the Ukrainian advance.
Meanwhile, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander of Ukraine's military, said his forces had advanced to within 50km (31 miles) of the Russian border.
The pace of the counter-attack has caught the Russians off guard, and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov - a staunch supporter of President Vladimir Putin - appeared to question the Russian retreat.
In a message posted to Telegram, Mr Kadyrov said if there was not a change in Russian fortunes, he would be forced to question the country's leadership to explain the situation.
But Russians still hold around a fifth of the country, and few imagine a swift end to the war. And Mr Kadyrov himself insisted "Russia will win" and "Nato weapons" would be "crushed".
In an interview with the Financial Times, Ukraine's defence minister Oleksii Reznikov hailed his troops, but warned of the potential for a Russian counter-attack.
"A counter-offensive liberates territory and after that you have to control it and be ready to defend it," Mr Reznikov said. "Of course, we have to be worried, this war has worried us for years."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy commended the military in a video address late Saturday, saying it has reclaimed about 2,000 square kilometers (over 770 square miles) of territory so far this month. He also taunted Moscow over its withdrawal, saying the Russian army was “demonstrating the best it can do — showing its back” and “they made a good choice to run.”
Both sides have suffered heavy losses in Europe's largest conflict since World War II. Ukraine’s military chief said last month that nearly 9,000 of the country's soldiers have been killed in action. And while Moscow hasn't reported its own losses since March, Western estimates put the toll as high as 25,000 dead, with the wounded, captured and deserters bringing the overall Russian losses to more than 80,000.
Ukraine has sought to mobilize the population to reach an active military of 1 million people, while Russia, in contrast, has continued to rely on a limited contingent of volunteers for fear that a mass mobilization could fuel discontent and upset internal stability.
As the war slogs on, a growing flow of Western weapons over the summer is now playing a key role in the counteroffensive, helping Ukraine significantly boost its precision strike capability.
Since the counteroffensive began, Ukraine said, its forces have reclaimed more than 30 settlements in the Kharkiv region.
In the Kherson region, troops sought to drive Russian forces from their foothold on the west bank of the Dnieper River, a potential vantage point for a push deeper into Ukraine by Moscow.
The city of Kherson, an economic hub at the confluence of the Dnieper and the Black Sea with a prewar population of about 300,000, was the first major population center to fall in the war.
Russian forces also have made inroads into the Zaporizhzhia region farther north, where they seized Europe's largest nuclear power plant. The last of its six reactors was shut down Sunday after operating in a risky “island mode" for several days to generate electricity for the plant's crucial coling systems after one of the power lines was restored.
Moscow has installed puppet administrations in occupied areas, introduced its currency, handed out Russian passports and prepared for local plebiscites to pave the way for annexation. But the counteroffensive has derailed those plans, with a top Moscow-backed official in Kherson saying the vote there needs to be put off.
A jubilant Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky mocked Moscow in a video address, saying “the Russian army in these days is demonstrating the best that it can do, showing its back”
Ukraine’s quick action to reclaim Russia-occupied areas in the northeastern Kharkiv region forced Moscow to withdraw its troops to prevent them from being surrounded and leave behind significant numbers of weapons and munitions in a hasty retreat.
On Sunday, the president also posted a video of Ukrainian soldiers hoisting the national flag over Chkalovske, another town they reclaimed from the Russians in the counteroffensive.
Ukraine’s military chief, General Valerii Zaluzhny, said Ukraine has liberated about 1,160 square miles since the beginning of September and was within some 30 miles of the border with Russia.
The pullback by Moscow’s forces marked the biggest battlefield success for Ukrainian forces since they thwarted a Russian attempt to seize the capital, Kyiv, at the start of the war in February.
Ukraine’s attack in the Kharkiv region came as a surprise for Moscow, which had relocated many of its troops from the area to the south in expectation of the main Ukrainian counteroffensive there.
In an awkward attempt to save face, the Russian Defence Ministry said the troops’ withdrawal from Izyum and other areas in the Kharkiv region was intended to strengthen Russian forces in the neighbouring Donetsk region to the south.
The group of Russian forces around Izyum has been key to Moscow’s effort to capture the Donetsk region, and the pullback will now dramatically weaken the Russian capability to press its offensive to Ukrainian strongholds of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk just to the south.
Igor Strelkov, who led Russia-backed separatists in the early months of the conflict in the Donbas when it erupted in 2014, mocked the Russian Defence Ministry’s explanation of the retreat, suggesting that handing over Russia’s own territory near the border to Ukraine was a “contribution to Ukrainian settlement”.
The retreat drew angry comments from Russian military bloggers and nationalist commentators, who bemoaned it as a major defeat and urged the Kremlin to respond by stepping up war efforts.
Many scathingly criticised Russian authorities for continuing with fireworks and other lavish festivities in Moscow that marked a city holiday on Saturday despite the debacle in Ukraine. There were also reports of some local Russian councils calling on President Vladimir Putin to resign, in a potential sign of growing internal opposition to the all-powerful leader.
Pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov criticised the festivities in Moscow as a grave political mistake.
“The fireworks in Moscow on a tragic day of Russia’s military defeat will have extremely serious political consequences,” Mr Markov wrote on his messaging app channel.
“Authorities mustn’t celebrate when people are mourning.”
In a sign of a potential rift in the Russian leadership, Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, said the retreat from the Kharkiv region resulted from the Russian military leadership’s blunders.
“They have made mistakes and I think they will draw the necessary conclusions,” Mr Kadyrov said.
“If they don’t make changes in the strategy of conducting the special military operation in the next day or two, I will be forced to contact the leadership of the Defence Ministry and the leadership of the country to explain the real situation on the ground.”
Despite Ukraine’s gains, the US secretary of state Antony Blinken and Jens Stoltenberg, secretary-general of Nato, warned the war would still likely drag on for months