Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Ukrainian attacks had intensified in recent days amid reports that Kyiv had started a full counter-offensive.
However, despite numerous reports of advances by Kyiv forces, even if limited, the Russian president sought to argue that Ukraine had not seen successes on any part of the frontline.
He made the comments speaking to Russian TV on the margins of a Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg.
Earlier, Ukraine vowed to see if Putin’s forces can “stand the heat” of its mounting operations as military experts documented signs of a growing counter-offensive against the invaders in the war-torn country’s south east.
In London, the Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence update that Ukrainian forces “continue major offensive operations in Zaporizhzhia Oblast (province)”, while Pentagon officials in Washington said Kyiv was throwing thousands of troops into the fray, many of them Western-trained and equipped.
Ukraine has benefited from billions in supplies from its allies, led by the US and Britain, although a leaked German army assessment this week complained that its forces were ignoring some Western military tenets and so the offensive was taking longer than hoped.
But British armed forces minister James Heappey denied that Ukraine’s long-awaited push had stalled in the teeth of powerful Russian defences including extensive landmines.
“Ukraine is meeting our expectations at the moment,” he told the Telegraph in South Korea, where he was marking the 70th anniversary of the armistice that froze the Korean War into a decades-long standoff between the communist North and Western-backed South.
“They are broadly delivering the plan that they worked out with us, and the Americans and others, over the last winter,” Heappey added.
Ukraine’s defence ministry tweeted photos of soldiers in a fiery landscape with the caption: “Hot days of war. Summer in Zaporizhzhia region. Let’s see if occupiers can stand the heat.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the city of Dnipro, north of Zaporizhzhia, where many wounded Ukrainian soldiers are receiving treatment after being evacuated from the front lines.
Writing on the Telegram messaging app, Zelensky said that he had discussed with top commanders and senior government officials the situation on the battlefield, supplies of munitions to troops and how to strengthen air defences.
The Institute for the Study of War said Kyiv had launched a significant mechanised counter-offensive operation in the west of Zaporizhia province, which lies in Ukraine’s south east.
The Washington-based think tank said the Ukrainian troops “appeared to have broken through certain pre-prepared Russian defensive positions south of Orikhiv”
It added: “Russian sources, including the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) and several prominent milbloggers, claimed that Ukrainian forces launched an intense frontal assault towards Robotyne (10km - six miles - south of Orikhiv) and broke through Russian defensive positions northeast of the settlement.”
The ISW explained further that “geolocated footage” indicated that Ukrainian forces likely advanced to within 2.5km (1.5 miles) directly east of Robotyne during the attack before Russian forces used “standard doctrinal elastic defence tactics” and partially pushed back Ukrainian units.
It also stated: “Russian sources provided a wide range of diverging claims as to the scale of both the attack and resulting Ukrainian losses, indicating that the actual results and Ukrainian losses remain unclear.”
The think tank highlighted that Western and Ukrainian officials suggested that the attacks towards Robotyne were an “inflection” in Ukraine’s counter-offensive effort.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reported two Pentagon officials saying that Ukraine had launched the “main thrust” of its summer counter-offensive, deploying thousands of troops held in reserve.
These reports came hours after Russian officials told of major Ukrainian attacks in the Zaporizhzhia region.
The Defence Ministry in Moscow said the Ukrainians had mounted a “massive” assault with three battalions, backed up with tanks, south of the town of Orikhiv, and then another a few miles farther south near the village of Robotyne, according to the state news agency Tass.
It claimed Ukrainian forces were pushed back.
Other US officials played down the suggestion that the main counter-offensive had been launched, suggesting it may be preparatory operations, according to the New York Times.
The ISW added: “Today’s actions around Robotyne are likely the start of any ‘main thrust’ Ukrainian forces might be launching, if the US officials are correct, rather than the sum of such a thrust.”
It suggested the Ukrainian military chiefs may have decided to step up the counter-offensive amid disarray among Putin’s defence top brass, with the sacking or sidelining of some commanders, and after Kyiv forces have been making gradual territorial gains.
But there were also reports that Russian units have seized more land in some areas.
