That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Ukraine live blog for this evening.
Thanks for following along.
In case you missed it earlier, Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday that its forces had repelled a series of Ukrainian attacks across three sections of the frontline, where it said Ukraine was pressing most actively in the Zaporizhzhia region.
Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports.
The statement did not mention the settlement of Piatykhatky in Zaporizhzhia region, which a Russian-installed official said earlier had been taken by Ukraine.
Updated
Russia and Ukraine are taking high numbers of military casualties as Ukraine fights to dislodge the Kremlin’s forces from occupied areas in the early stages of its counteroffensive, British officials said on Sunday.
Russian losses are probably at their highest level since the peak of the battle for Bakhmut in March, UK military officials said in their regular assessment, AP reports.
According to British intelligence, the most intense fighting has centred on the south-eastern Zaporizhzhia province, around Bakhmut and farther west in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province. While the update reported that Ukraine was on the offensive in these areas and had made “small advances”, it said Russian forces were conducting “relatively effective defensive operations” in Ukraine’s south.
The Ukrainian military said in a regular update on Sunday morning that over the previous 24 hours Russia had carried out 43 airstrikes, four missile strikes and 51 attacks from multiple rocket launchers.
According to the statement by the general staff, Russia continues to concentrate its efforts on offensive operations in Ukraine’s industrial east, focusing attacks around Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Marinka and Lyman in Donetsk province, with 26 combat clashes taking place.
The Donetsk regional governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said two civilians were killed and three wounded in the past day. Ukrainian officials said Russian forces also launched airstrikes on other regions of the east and south of the country.
One civilian was killed and four more wounded in Kherson province as a result of Russia’s attacks, said that region’s governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, while the Zaporizhzhia regional governor, Yurii Malashko, said one person was wounded in Russian attacks that hit 20 settlements in the province.
Vladimir Rogov, an official with the Moscow-appointed administration in the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region, said on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had taken control of the village of Piatykhatky on the Zaporizhzhia battlefront.
Updated
Evening summary
It is 6pm in Kyiv. These have been the key developments today:
Ukraine has recaptured the village of Piatykhatky, in the southern Zapororizhzhia region, reports suggest. It would be the second gain in the area since it launched its counteroffensive earlier this month. A Russian-installed official said Ukrainian forces had taken the settlement and were entrenching themselves there while coming under fire from Russian artillery, Reuters reports. If confirmed, this is Ukraine’s first village gain for nearly a week, and marks an apparent escalation of the offensive on the most direct route to Crimea.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed on Sunday that its forces had repelled a series of Ukrainian attacks across three sections of the frontline where it said Ukraine was pressing most actively in the Zaporizhzhia region, Reuters reports. The battlefield reports could not be independently verified.
The EU is speeding up arms deliveries to Ukraine to support the counteroffensive against Russian forces, the EU industry chief Thierry Breton told the French daily Le Parisien. He said the EU would be stepping up its efforts, pledging that 1m high-caliber weapons must be provided within the next year.
The UK Ministry of Defence says heavy fighting continues to be focused in Zaporizhzhia oblast, western Donetsk oblast and around Bakhmut. It says both sides are taking high casualties, with Russian losses likely to be the highest since the peak of the battle for Bakhmut in March.
The death toll from flooding caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam has risen to 16 in Ukraine and 29 in territories controlled by Russia, according to briefings by Kyiv and Moscow. Flood water poured across a huge area of southern Ukraine and Russian-occupied areas when the dam was breached on 6 June.
Ukrainian forces have destroyed an ammunition depot near the Russian-occupied port city of Henichesk, in the southern region of Kherson, a spokesperson for the Odesa military administration said on Sunday.
Updated
The capture by Ukrainian forces of the village of Piatykhatky in the southern Zaporizhzhia region would actually be the second gain on that front since the start of the counteroffensive, Reuters is now reporting.
The Ukrainian authorities have still not officially confirmed the capture, which came to light after a Russian-installed official, Vladimir Rogov, posted on Telegram that Ukrainian forces had taken the village and were entrenching themselves there while coming under fire from Russian artillery.
It was previously reported that this would be the first gain in the area but Ukraine said on 12 June it had taken control of Lobkove, a village adjacent to Piatykhatky.
Updated
My colleague Miles Brignall has the astonishing story of a retired social worker from Lancashire whose bank account was shut by Lloyds Banking Group while she has been dodging missiles volunteering at the frontline in Ukraine. The bank’s actions – possibly a result of fears that she was a sanctions risk – left her with no access to her pension or life savings.
Here’s an extract from Miles’s report:
Fiona Hancock and her partner, Robert Paliwoda, have been working as volunteers helping women and children across various parts of the country since June last year.
She says Kherson, where they are now, has been under shelling and missile attacks for most of the time, and is facing serious flooding after the attack on the Nova Kakhovka dam this month.
During their year in Ukraine, the pair from Trawden in Lancashire have mostly been using Robert’s account, accessing money through local ATMs “as and when there has been enough electricity to power them, and when local curfews allowed”.
It was about only six weeks ago when Hancock tried to access her bank account that she discovered Lloyds had shut it down without her knowledge.
You can read the full story here.
Updated
The photographer Anatolii Stepanov was with the Ukrainian army in Donetsk and Luhansk for AFP yesterday. His images give an insight into Ukrainian soldiers’ life on the frontline.
Updated
My colleagues Dan Sabbagh and Artem Mazhulin have filed a fascinating – if harrowing – interview with a woman from Zaporizhzhia who was kidnapped and tortured by Russian intelligence officers.
“They tied my hands to my ankles,” she begins, demonstrating by bending forward, before she describes being hit around the head with a full plastic bottle. Strangulation was regular – “one guy holding your neck, another pinching your nose” – while they demanded unsuccessfully that she reveal her husband’s location or inform on others with military connections in the town.
A wire flex was wrapped around her neck, a gun was placed against her forehead – “Imagine the condition I was in,” she says, speaking quickly – and she says she was also given electric shocks.
Read the piece in full here.
Updated
Hi, it’s Helen Pidd here, tending the blog while Emily has a break. I was just catching up with an interview given by the Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko to Sky’s Sophy Ridge this morning. One particular exchange really caught my eye, when Ridge asked: “What would you say to people who may be experiencing Ukraine fatigue?”
Vasylenko’s reply:
First of all, it’s normal. This escalation has been going on for one and a half years and to say we’re not tired in Ukraine would be a lie because we are.
But the fact is we don’t have any other choice but to wake up every day, get over this tiredness and continue fighting and continue standing, and as Ukraine stands that means that Poland stands, that means that Romania, Slovakia, all those other countries surrounding Ukraine stand.
Because if Ukraine falls this will be a green flag for Putin to carry on with his aggression and his imperialistic expansion, and essentially the UK and any other country helping Ukraine, they are helping fight off these imperialist absolutely sick dreams of a power-crazed dictator. That’s something to remember and something to fight that fatigue off with.
Updated
Afternoon summary
It is coming up to 3pm in Ukraine. Here are the key developments so far today:
Ukraine has recaptured the village of Piatykhatky, in the southern Zapororizhzhia region, reports suggest. It would be its first gain in the area since it launched its counteroffensive earlier this month. A Russian-installed official said Ukrainian forces had taken the settlement and were entrenching themselves there while coming under fire from Russian artillery, Reuters reports. If confirmed, it would be Ukraine’s first village gain for nearly a week, and marks an apparent escalation of the offensive on the most direct route to Crimea.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed on Sunday that its forces had repelled a series of Ukrainian attacks across three sections of the frontline where it said Ukraine was pressing most actively in the Zaporizhzhia region, Reuters reports. The battlefield reports could not be independently verified.
The EU is speeding up arms deliveries to Ukraine to support the counteroffensive against Russian forces, the EU industry chief Thierry Breton told the French daily Le Parisien. He said the EU would be stepping up its efforts, pledging that 1m high-caliber weapons must be provided within the next year.
The UK Ministry of Defence says heavy fighting continues to be focused in Zaporizhzhia oblast, western Donetsk oblast and around Bakhmut. It says both sides are taking high casualties, with Russian losses likely to be the highest since the peak of the battle for Bakhmut in March.
The death toll from flooding caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam has risen to 16 in Ukraine and 29 in territories controlled by Russia, according to briefings by Kyiv and Moscow. Flood water poured across a huge area of southern Ukraine and Russian-occupied areas when the dam was breached on 6 June.
Ukrainian forces have destroyed an ammunition depot near the Russian-occupied port city of Henichesk, in the southern region of Kherson, a spokesperson for the Odesa military administration said on Sunday.
Updated
Russia’s defence ministry claimed on Sunday that its forces had repelled a series of Ukrainian attacks across three sections of the frontline where it said Ukraine was pressing most actively in the Zaporizhzhia region, Reuters reports.
The battlefield reports could not be independently verified.
The statement did not mention the village of Piatykhatky in Zaporizhzhia, which a Russian-installed official said earlier had been taken by Ukraine.
Updated
Volodymyr Zelenskiy used Father’s Day to promote the war effort, thanking all “strong and brave” soldiers fighting Russia’s invasion.
“Thank you to every Ukrainian father, every Ukrainian family for our strong and brave warriors who have defended Ukraine’s independence and are fighting for life for Ukraine!” Zelensky posted on social media.
He added: “I wish for our fathers to live long and healthy lives. And for every father who is on the frontline to come home.”
The post included a video by United24, a government-run platform to raise fund for the war effort. Images of Ukrainian soldiers returning from home, hugging children, were shown to cinematic music, while a woman thanked dads for “for being our heroes this Father’s Day”.
Updated
The EU is speeding up arms deliveries to Ukraine to support the counteroffensive against Russian forces, the EU industry chief Thierry Breton told the French daily Le Parisien.
“We are going to step up our efforts to deliver arms and ammunition – this is a war of high intensity in which they play a crucial role,” Breton said, pledging that 1m high-caliber weapons must be provided within the next year.
“We are preparing for the war to last several more months, or even longer,” he added.
Updated
The Russian military blogger War Gonzo has also reported that Russian troops have abandoned the village of Piatykhatky, on the Zaporizhzhia front. The writer suggests Ukraine has concentrated large reserves in the area, mostly infantry but also “heavy armoured vehicles”, and wonders if Kyiv will activate its reserves for what would probably be a major attack in the area.
If confirmed, it would be Ukraine’s first village gain for nearly a week, and significantly it marks an apparent escalation of the offensive on the most direct route to Crimea, although this is the area where Russian defences are believed to be strongest.
Updated
Reuters has more on reports that the village of Piatykhatky in the southern Zapororizhzhia region has been recaptured:
A Russian-installed official acknowledged on Sunday that Ukraine had recaptured a village in the southern Zapororizhzhia region, its first gain on that front since it launched its counteroffensive earlier this month.
The official, Vladimir Rogov, said Ukrainian forces had taken the settlement of Piatykhatky and were entrenching themselves there while coming under fire from Russian artillery.
“The enemy’s ‘wave-like’ offensives yielded results, despite enormous losses,” Rogov said on the Telegram messaging app.
Heavy fighting continues in the area, he added. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine, and Reuters could not independently confirm the situation on the battlefield.
Updated
Ukrainian forces reportedly take control of Piatykhatky
Ukrainian forces have taken control of the settlement of Piatykhatky on the Zaporizhzhia battle front, according a Russian-installed official, Reuters reports.
Updated
Загальні бойові втрати противника з 24.02.22 по 18.06.23 орієнтовно склали / The total combat losses of the enemy from 24.02.22 to 18.06.23 were approximately pic.twitter.com/OrCEcyEsj7
— Генеральний штаб ЗСУ (@GeneralStaffUA) June 18, 2023
Ukraine’s armed forces are claiming that they killed an estimated 650 Russian soldiers on Saturday, according to an update from its general staff.
It brings Kyiv’s estimated death toll for Russian troops since Moscow’s invasion last year to 219,820. Their figures could not be verified and are subject to updates.
Five civilians were killed in Russian attacks in Ukraine over the last 24 hours and eight injured, including two children, according to a summary of regional authority updates by the Kyiv Independent.
The general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces also said seven Russian tanks and 23 armoured vehicles were destroyed yesterday.
Updated
The Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko has been speaking to Sophy Ridge on Sky News about the impact of the counteroffensive and efforts to rebuild the country.
Speaking ahead of the Ukraine Recovery Conference, which starts in London on Wednesday, she said that daily and nightly shelling continued to cause havoc and “massive destruction to the critical infrastructure needed for the country to run”.
Vasylenko said rebuilding roads was “the biggest challenge right now”, adding that there were about 25,000km of road that needed to be rebuilt “right now for communities to continue to function properly”.
She also reminded viewers of the situation for Ukrainian children spending Father’s Day separated from their dads. “As the UK and the world celebrates Father’s Day, in Ukraine and millions of children are separated from their fathers, who are either fighting on the frontline or the Ukrainian children are outside in countries like the UK seeking refuge while their fathers remain ready for battle in Ukraine,” she said.
Vasylenko said the counteroffensive was affecting everyone in the country, even those far from the frontline. “It’s intense. Every time that Ukraine gets an upper hand in the war zone … [Russia] launches missiles and drones on the peaceful cities in the western Ukraine and especially on Kyiv the capital. So the whole country is in a very tense situation right now because whether you are fighting and living in the combat zones, or you are living in Kyiv, or you are living in western Ukraine, you are still countering Russia’s aggression.”
Updated
Julian Borger is reporting from Georgia, where the situation in Ukraine is being watched closely.
Around the Georgian village of Khurvaleti, Russia’s occupation can creep forward a few yards at a time, often in the middle of the night. It often starts with a line ploughed across a field. Then a green sign will materialise, warning people not to cross. Then the concertina wire appears.
Khurvaleti is at the southern edge of South Ossetia, a breakaway region occupied by Russian troops since a five-day war with Georgia in 2008, in what proved to be a dress rehearsal for Ukraine. Now on the defensive after Putin’s botched Ukraine invasion, Moscow has shifted troops and equipment from Ossetia.
There are few soldiers to be seen in the two military bases built in the hills on either side of Khurvaleti. But Georgians fear that if Russia were to prevail in Ukraine, Putin’s forces will be back to take another bite out of Georgia, most likely with the intention of swallowing the country whole.
For now, the line marking the extent of Russian occupation is watched by EU monitors who patrol in dark blue Toyotas, looking for new signs of “borderisation”, their word for the steady hardening of boundaries.
“Usually it starts with soft borderisation: ditches, ribbons on trees that show demarcation between the two different sites,” said Klaas Maes, a spokesperson for the monitoring mission. “Then it goes on to hard borderisation, where the ditches become fences, the fences become barbed wire, and then barbed wires are then fortified with extra watchtowers.”
You can read his full piece here.
Updated
The death toll from flooding caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam has risen to 16 in Ukraine and 29 in territories controlled by Russia, according to briefings by Kyiv and Moscow.
Flood water poured across a huge area of southern-Ukraine and Russian-occupied areas when the the dam was breached on 6 June.
More from Reuters here:
More than 3,600 people have been evacuated from the flooded areas in the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, while 31 people were still missing and some 1,300 houses remained flooded, Ukraine’s interior ministry said on its Telegram channel late on Saturday.Andrei Alekseyenko, chairman of the Russian-installed administration in the Moscow-occupied parts of the Kherson region, said on the Telegram messaging app the death toll had risen to 29 people.
Ukraine accuses Russia of blowing up the Soviet-era dam, under Russian control since early days of its invasion in 2022.
A team of international legal experts assisting Ukraine’s prosecutors in their investigation said in preliminary findings on Friday it was “highly likely” the collapse in Ukraine’s Kherson region was caused by explosives planted by Russians.
Updated
Ukrainian forces destroy ammunition depot in the village of Rykove – official
More on that ammunition depot story in Russian-controlled territory.
Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesperson for the Odesa military administration, said on Sunday Ukrainian forces destroyed a “very significant” ammunition depot near the Russian-occupied port city of Henichesk in the southern region of Kherson.
“Our armed forces dealt a good blow in the morning – and a very loud one – in the village of Rykove, Henichesk district, in the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region,” Bratchuk said in a morning video message on Sunday. “There was a very significant ammunition depot. It was destroyed.”
Reuters could not independently verify the information. And there was no immediate comment from Russia on the alleged attack.
Ukrainian media posted videos showing a vast plume of smoke rising far on the horizon with sounds of blasts and burning projectiles flying into the sky.
Rykove is located on a railway line about 20km from Henichesk, a port city along the Sea of Azov in southern Ukraine, which has been occupied by Kremlin forces since the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The Uk Ministry of Defence says heavy fighting is continuing to be focused in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, western Donetsk Oblast, and around Bakhmut.
It says both sides are suffering high casualties, with Russian losses likely the highest since the peak of the battle for Bakhmut in March.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 18 June 2023.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) June 18, 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/kAqNWJPcea
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/mfO2AfBSy2
Meanwhile, BBC Russia and the Mediazona news outlet continues to collect data about the casualties sustained by the Russian military in Ukraine.
Since their latest update on 4 June, 1,058 names have been added to the list of casualties. The bi-weekly total is lower than it was during active fighting for Bakhmut, but they are still collating names from that period.
By 16 June, they had verified the deaths of 251 Russian officers ranked Lieutenant Colonel or above.
Most of those killed in action come from the Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions, Bashkiria, Buryatia, and the Volgograd regions.
The outlets note the real death toll is much higher and the number of soldiers missing in action or captured is not known.
Opening summary
Welcome back to our continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine, I’m Christine Kearney bringing you the latest news.
Ukrainian forces have destroyed an ammunition depot near the Russian-occupied port city of Henichesk in the southern region of Kherson, Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for the Odesa military administration, said on Sunday.
“There was a very significant ammunition depot. It was destroyed,” Bratchuk said in a morning video message on Sunday.
More details to come, in other key developments:
Vladimir Putin on Saturday gave African leaders pushing for negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow a list of reasons why he believed many of their peace proposals were misguided, pouring cold water on a plan already largely dismissed by Kyiv. The African leaders were seeking agreement on a series of “confidence building measures”, telling the Russian president it was time to negotiate an end to fighting, which they said was harming the entire world.
After presentations from the Comoran, Senegalese and South African presidents, Putin challenged the assumptions of the plan. He reiterated his position that Ukraine and its western allies started the conflict and said Russia had never refused talks with the Ukrainian side, but these had been blocked by Kyiv. Moscow says any peace must allow for “new realities”, meaning its declared but globally unrecognised annexation of five Ukrainian provinces, four of which it only partially controls – a red line for Kyiv.
South Africa’s president told Putin that the fighting had to stop. “This war must be settled … through negotiations and through diplomatic means,” said Cyril Ramaphosa after talks in the suburbs of St Petersburg.
Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, confirmed troops were “engaged in active moves” to advance the counteroffensive in the south. Ukrainian forces around Bakhmut, captured by Russia last month, were trying to push Russian forces out from the outskirts of the devastated city. Russia did not officially acknowledge Ukrainian advances and said it inflicted heavy losses on Kyiv’s forces in the previous 24 hours.
Two people died after a Russian missile strike on a village in the Kharkiv region in the north-east of Ukraine, said the regional governor, Oleh Synehubov. Synehubov said on Telegram that Russian forces shelled the village of Huryiv Kozachok. An anti-tank guided missile hit a car driving towards the village, which is near the border with Russia.
Jens Stoltenberg was expected to be asked to remain as Nato secretary general for another year, a Reuters source said. Stoltenberg’s term has been prolonged three times and he is due to step down in September after nine years. The Norwegian had broad support and continued to be an effective leader, said the source, who requested anonymity. The chances of Stoltenberg being asked to stay on have increased as Nato’s summit in Vilnius has neared, with allies fearing any show of disunity during Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, visited a military factory in western Siberia and stressed the need “to maintain the increased production of tanks”, the defence ministry said. Agence France-Presse reported that Shoigu said this was necessary “to satisfy the needs of Russian forces carrying out the special military operation” in Ukraine.
Moscow said troops destroyed three drones targeting an oil refinery in the southern border region of Bryansk. The regional governor, Alexander Bogomaz, said: “Russian air defence systems repelled an overnight attack by the Ukrainian armed forces on the Druzhba oil refinery in the district of Novozybkov. Thanks to the professionalism of our military … three aerial drones were destroyed.”
Vladimir Putin confirmed Russia had deployed its first tranche of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. He said nuclear weapons would only be used in the event of a threat to the existence of the Russian state. Speaking at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday, the Russian president also said there was a “serious danger” that the Nato military alliance could be pulled further into the Ukraine war.
