Ukrainian forces were on Monday reported to be recapturing towns along the west bank of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine near the city of Kherson.
Moscow's troops have apparently yielded land that Russia claims to have annexed along a second major front after Ukrainian forces took the key logistics hub of Lyman — Kyiv's most significant battlefield gain in weeks.
Both moves set the stage for advances aimed at further cutting Russian supply lines.
The scale of the Ukrainian advance in the south is unconfirmed. However, Russian military bloggers have described a Ukrainian tank advance through dozens of kilometers of territory along Dnipro's western bank.
Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute think-tank, cited Russian bloggers as reporting that Moscow's troops had fallen back as far as Dudchany — 40 km (25 miles) downriver from where they had been fighting a day earlier.
"When this many Russian channels are sounding the alarm, it usually means they're in trouble," he wrote on Twitter.
Chechnya's Kadyrov says will send sons to front
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, says he is sending three of his teenage sons — aged 14, 15 and 16 — to the front line in Ukraine.
"It's time to prove themselves in a real fight, I can only welcome this desire," Kadyrov wrote on Telegram, posting a video of the boys firing missiles in a shooting range. "Soon they will go to the front line and will be on the most difficult sections of the contact line."
Kadyrov, the leader of Russia's southern Chechnya region whose troops are fighting for Moscow, on Saturday called for a change of strategy "right up to the declaration of martial law in the border areas and the use of low-yield nuclear weapons."
The Kremlin dismissed the call saying it was a "very emotional moment."
"In our country, the use of nuclear weapons happens only on the basis of what is stated in the relevant doctrine", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
UK says Putin's mobilization looks in jeopardy
The UK Ministry of Defence says Russian President Vladimir Putin's plan to mobilize personnel for the war in Ukraine looks beset by failure.
Russia's first mobilization since World War Two has led to widespread discontent, including complaints about call-up papers being sent to clearly ineligible men.
Putin addressed his National Security Council on the "partial mobilization" he had announced on 21 September, and admitted that there had been problems.
Putin admitted "a lot of questions are being raised during this mobilization campaign, and we must promptly correct our mistakes and not repeat them."
The UK ministry said Putin's "unusually rapid acknowledgment of problems highlights the dysfunction of the mobilization over its first week. Local officials are likely unclear on the exact scope and legal rationale of the campaign."
"As drafted reservists continue to assemble at tented transit camps, Russian officials are likely struggling to provide training and in finding officers to lead new units."
