In Kryviy Rih, eight Russian cruise missiles hit a hydropower system, officials said. Zelenskiy said the water system had "no military value" and hundreds of thousands of civilians depend on it daily.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has visited areas the Ukrainian military recaptured from Russian forces, says there is large-scale devastation in towns and cities there, while the major city of Kryviy Rih struggles to contain damage to its water system from Russian missile attacks.
Despite the devastation left behind by Russia's troops, Ukrainian forces continue to consolidate their control of the newly liberated areas in the Kharkiv region, Britain's Ministry of Defense said in its regular intelligence bulletin on September 15.
Zelenskiy promised "victory" on a visit on September 14 to the recently liberated strategic city of Izyum in the east.
The visit came at a decisive moment in the six-month-old war, with Ukraine expelling Moscow's forces from swaths of the east.
"Our blue-yellow flag is already flying in de-occupied Izyum. And it will be so in every Ukrainian city and village," Zelensky said in a statement on social media.
"We are moving in only one direction -- forward and toward victory."
Later, in his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said Ukrainian troops advanced 110 kilometers in five days.
The British intelligence assessment suggested that Russian forces have largely withdrawn from the area west of the Oskil River in eastern Ukraine, abandoning high-value equipment that included capabilities essential to enable Russia's artillery-centric style of warfare.
The British bulletin also indicated that while some units retreated in relatively good order and under control, "others fled in apparent panic" during the Ukrainian blitz counteroffensive.
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Separately, Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov told Ukrainian Channel 24 television that the ratio of personnel losses during Ukraine's counteroffensive was 1 to 9-10 in favor of Kyiv's forces. The information could not be independently confirmed.
In Kryviy Rih, the largest city in central Ukraine, with an estimated prewar population of 650,000, eight Russian cruise missiles hit a hydropower system on September 14, officials said.
Zelenskiy said in his daily video address released early on September 15 that the missile strikes hit the Karachunov reservoir dam. The water system had "no military value" and hundreds of thousands of civilians depend on it daily, he said.
The video, released after Zelenskiy's return to Kyiv from his visit to the liberated areas in the northeast Kharkiv region, came out later than his usual nightly address and followed word from his office that his car had collided with a private vehicle in Kyiv on its way back from the visit.
"The president was examined by a doctor, no serious injuries were found," presidential spokesman Serhiy Nykyforov said in a Facebook post early on September 15, without specifying what injuries Zelenskiy might have suffered.
The driver of the other vehicle received first aid from Zelenskiy's medical team and was taken away by ambulance, Nykyforov added. He added that the circumstances of the accident were under investigation.
