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Russia's military repelled an offensive launched by the Ukrainian armed forces in Mykolaiv and Kherson, which they carried out at the behest of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday, adding that the Ukrainian units suffered major losses.

"Today, during the day, on the direct orders of Zelenskyy, Ukrainian troops attempted an offensive in Mykolaiv and Kherson regions in three directions," Moscow said.

"As a result of the active defense of the grouping of Russian troops, units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces suffered heavy losses," the ministry added. "Another attempt at offensive actions by the enemy failed miserably." 

Reports are coming in that Ukrainian forces are on the move somewhere around this area. Ukrainian sources are announcing a large-scale offensive, but there is currently no information as to what exactly is happening and how large the attacking Ukrainian force is. pic.twitter.com/C9yxTdzd31

— Russians With Attitude (@RWApodcast) August 29, 2022

The Ukrainian armed forces lost more than 560 troops, 26 tanks, and two attack aircraft during the attempted offensive, the Russian ministry revealed.

Ukrainian forces have launched a counter-attack to retake the southern region of Kherson, which is currently under the control of Russian troops, a local government official said on Monday.

"Ukrainian armed forces have launched their offensive in several areas in the south," the head of the regional administration, Yaroslav Yanushevych, said on Telegram.

"Today there was a powerful artillery attack on enemy positions in ... the entire territory of the occupied Kherson region," Sergey Khlan, a local deputy and adviser to the regional governor told Ukraine's Pryamyi TV channel.

"This is the announcement of what we have been waiting for since the spring - it is the beginning of the end of the occupation of the Kherson region." 

"What is happening now is a prepared, well-balanced start of a counteroffensive," Khlan told AFP.

"Today there was a powerful artillery attack on enemy positions in ... the entire territory of the occupied Kherson region," Sergey Khlan, a local deputy and adviser to the regional governor told Ukraine's Pryamyi TV channel.

The region has been undergoing heavy battles for the past month, with Moscow reporting earlier this month that Russian forces neutralized approximately 500 Ukrainian nationalists in the Kherson region by strikes and artillery fire.

The Kherson Region in Ukraine is set to hold a referendum to become a full-fledged entity of the Russian Federation, according to the deputy head of the region’s military-civilian administration, Kirill Stremousov.

"The Kherson Region will forget about neo-Nazism already in the near future. We are getting ready for the referendum, we will hold it. I hope that in the near future already we will become a full-fledged territorial entity of the Russian Federation," Kirill Stremousov said in a video published on his Telegram channel.

Earlier in June, the first 23 Russian passports have been issued in the Kherson region, including to Vladimir Saldo, the head of the region's administration, a Sputnik correspondent reported on Saturday, June 11.