Ukraine claims to have recaptured Pyatykhatky, a village near Zaporizhia, a confirmed victory for the pro-Russian leader of the southern front. However, Moscow denied this version, saying that his forces had repelled Ukrainian attacks on three sections of the 1,000 km front line. In Adiivka in the Donetsk region there was also heavy fighting.
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President Volodymyr Zelensky praised Ukrainian forces on Sunday for “very effectively” repelling enemy attacks near Avdiivka, one of the epicenters of fighting in the east.
“The Avdiivka sector is very effective in repelling assaults,” Zelenskiy said in his late-night video speech.
The head of the military administration in Avdiivka, a mining town torn apart by months of fighting, told national television that Ukrainian forces had advanced about one kilometer (two-thirds of a mile) around the town in the past two weeks.
Zelensky also called the southern front “the most brutal” and expressed his gratitude to the soldiers fighting there and elsewhere. Ukrainian military officials have noted progress in advancing troops on the southern front.
This is the second week of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, the attacks are increasing more and more in an easterly direction. On the banks of the Dnieper River, Pyatykhatky would have been recaptured by the Ukrainian Army, according to kyiv and a pro-Russian local official.
“The enemy’s ‘wave-like’ offensives yielded results, despite huge losses,” the official, Vladimir Rogov, said on the Telegram messaging app.
But the Russian Defense Ministry contradicted Rogov and did not mention Piatykhatky in its daily update.
Local pro-Russian authorities also claimed that Ukrainian forces had destroyed a major Russian ammunition dump in the occupied Kherson region, as part of a week-long effort by Kiev to wreak havoc on Russian supply lines.
Losses on both sides
The start of the counteroffensive is making itself felt. According to British military officials, Russian losses are probably at their highest level today than during the height of the long and bloody battle for Bakhmut in March.
According to British intelligence, the heaviest fighting has been centered in the southeastern province of Zaporizhzhia and further west in the Donetsk province on the eastern front. However, British intelligence acknowledges that while the Ukrainian offensive is strong on these battlefronts, Russian forces are also responding strongly; which makes deaths high on both sides.
Neither Moscow nor kyiv give up. The Ukrainian military said in a regular update on Sunday morning that Russia had carried out 43 airstrikes, four missile attacks and 51 attacks from multiple rocket launchers in the previous 24 hours.
While Moscow denounced attacks by Ukrainian forces in the Russian city of Belgorod. It is not certain if it would be the Ukrainian Army or pro-kyiv Russian militias.
Failed calls from the UN and the African peace mission
The United Nations (UN) said on Sunday that Russia “has so far rejected our request to access the areas under its temporary military control” after the Kakhovka dam burst on June 6, releasing floodwaters and cutting off supplies to civilians.
“The UN will continue to be committed to seeking necessary access. We urge the Russian authorities to act in accordance with their obligations under international humanitarian law,” United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine Denise Brown said in a statement.
Fierce fighting continued all Sunday in three sections of the front line in Ukraine, a day after hosting an African peacekeeping mission that failed to arouse enthusiasm in Moscow or Kiev.
With Reuters, AP and local media
