UKRAINIAN military officials said today that troops had recaptured a fourth village in the south-east of the country from Russian forces following days of an intense counteroffensive in the region.

Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said that Ukraine’s flag was again flying over the village of Storozhov, in the eastern Donetsk region.

A day earlier, Kiev said its troops had taken three other small villages nearby: Blahodatne, Makarivka and Neskuchne.

Vladimir Rogov, an official with the Moscow-appointed administration of the Zaporizhzhia region at the west end of the front line, said that “heavy battles are raging” in the area, involving Russian artillery, mortars and air power.

Russian authorities said their troops have largely held their ground and did not confirm a Russian retreat from the three villages.

Western analysts and military officials have cautioned that an effort to rid Ukraine of “entrenched, powerfully armed and skilled” Russian troops could take years and the success of any Ukrainian counteroffensive is far from certain.

Retired British general Sir Richard Barrons said the Russian military had built textbook defensive lines and adjusted its tactics following its hasty retreat from wide swaths of the Kharkiv and Kherson regions last year.

And Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said that Moscow had maintained a numerical advantage in troops and weapons, despite any apparent weaknesses, adding that Russia increasingly use drones and improved electronic warfare to jam those from Ukraine.

London-based think tank the Royal United Service Institute said in a report that Russian fire represents “the greatest challenge to Ukrainian offensive operations.”

The villages recaptured this week are small, with Blahodatne having a pre-invasion population of about 1,000 people, but they are key areas in the front lines, separating the two sides by just over a mile.

The action comes as authorities on both sides of the front line pressed on with rescue and relocation efforts for civilians in the Kherson region driven from their homes by flooding from the breach of the Kakhovka dam last week.

Thousands of people have been evacuated from the region but some remain, and many homes and shops have been left under filthy river water.

The United Nations and other aid groups say access to fresh drinking water is a crucial need and the possible spread of water-borne diseases a big risk.