Ukrainian forces have made modest advances and gained control of certain communities in the southern Kherson area, according to a Russian-installed official on Monday.

“It’s stressful,” Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed governor of Ukraine’s Kherson region, stated on state television.

“Where the Kakhovka (reservoir) stands, there is a hamlet named Dudchany… there is a breakthrough and settlements captured by Ukrainian army,” he explained.

Dudchany, on the west bank of the Dnipro river, is about 40 km (25 miles) downriver from where Russian troops had opposed Ukrainian forces a day earlier.

Ukrainian officials have been tight-lipped about the scale of their counter-offensive in the south, but Russian military bloggers have described Ukrainian tanks advancing along the bank of the Dnipro river.

Russia formally moved to annex four Ukrainian territories last week, including Kherson region, but none are fully under the control of Moscow’s forces and Ukraine continues to wage a counter-offensive in the south and east.