Ukrainian Troops Advance in the East
Latest Developments:
● Fighters with the Wagner mercenary force who revolted against Russian military leadership began pulling out of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on Saturday night. Their leader, Wagner founded Yevgeny Prigozhin, said his forces would return to base to avoid bloodshed.
● Prigozhin will move to Belarus under a deal negotiated by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, ending Wagner’s armed mutiny against Russia's military leadership, the Kremlin said Saturday.
● Israel on Saturday urged its citizens to reassess their stay in Russia or their travel plans there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to convene security chiefs later Saturday, the Defense Ministry said in a statement. There are an estimated 60,000 or 70,000 Israelis presently in Russia and around 500,000 Jews who are eligible for immigration to Israel.
The British Defense Ministry said Sunday in its daily intelligence report about Ukraine that in “recent days,” Ukraine has again undertaken “major offensive operations” on three main axes in southern and eastern Ukraine.
In the report posted on Twitter, the update said Ukraine forces have learned from their experiences in the first two weeks of the counteroffensive and have refined their tactics to assault “the deep, well prepared Russian defenses.”
Ukrainian troops have advanced in several directions around the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk Oblast, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Saturday. “There is progress in all directions,” she wrote on Telegram.
Maliar said that the advances had taken place near the villages of Orikhovo-Vasylivka, Bohdanivka, Yahidne, Klishchiivka, and Kurdyumivka and added that fighting continues in the south.
“The enemy is suffering significant losses in personnel, weapons and equipment,” she wrote.
On the southern front, commander Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, said Ukraine forces liberated an area west of Donetsk that had been controlled by separatist forces since 2014, when Russia first invaded.
Three Ukrainian senior officials signaled Friday that the main part of the counteroffensive has not yet begun.
"Offensive operations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine continue in a number of areas. Formation operations are underway to set up the battlefield," presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter. "The counteroffensive is not a new season of a Netflix show,” he said. “There is no need to expect action and buy popcorn."
Maliar said the "main events" of the counteroffensive were "ahead of us." "And the main blow is still to come. Indeed, some of the reserves — these are staged things — will be activated later," Maliar told Ukrainian television.
Tarnavskiy, the commander of Ukraine's southern front, said Russian forces had lost hundreds of men and 51 military vehicles in the past 24 hours, including three tanks and 14 armored personnel carriers.
The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces reported Saturday that Russia has lost 223,910 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion, with an estimated 580 casualties on Friday, The Kyiv Independent reported.
According to the report, Russia has also lost 4,024 tanks, 7,804 armored fighting vehicles, 6,731 vehicles and fuel tanks, 4,015 artillery systems, 619 multiple launch rocket systems, 383 air defense systems, 314 airplanes, 308 helicopters, 3,460 drones, and 18 boats.
Russia missile attacks
Earlier Saturday, three people were killed and eight injured during a Russian missile attack on Kyiv, local officials said.
It was Russia’s eighth attack on the Ukrainian capital in June, said Serhii Popko, the head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. He added that falling debris from a Russian missile attack in Kyiv resulted in a fire on several floors of a 24-story building. He also said that air defenses had shot down more than 20 Russian missiles in the airspace around Kyiv.
Officials in Ukraine said Russia launched missile attacks on several Ukrainian cities Saturday, causing damage to buildings and casualties.
Meanwhile, 11 people, including three children, were injured in a missile attack on the city of Dnipro that destroyed four homes, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. Seven of them are hospitalized, officials said.
In Kharkiv, a city of more than 1 million people just south of the Russian border, a fire was started when a gas line was hit, Mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram. Terekhov said three missiles were fired at the city.
Explosions were also reported in Kremenchuk, RFE/RL reported.
In his nightly video address Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted to Russia’s political turmoil since Wagner’s revolt Friday and its subsequent de-escalation, Saturday.
"Today the world saw that the bosses of Russia do not control anything. Nothing at all. Complete chaos. Complete absence of any predictability. And it is happening on Russian territory, which is fully loaded with weapons,” he said adding, “if someone in the world is under the illusion that the Kremlin is capable of regaining control... this only postpones the problem until the next breakthrough of chaos – even more dangerous.”
Zelenskyy addressed Putin in Russian saying, "The longer your troops remain on Ukrainian land, the greater the devastation they will bring to Russia."
The White House on Saturday released a statement saying President Joe Biden spoke with President Emmanuel Macron of France, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of the United Kingdom. The leaders discussed the situation in Russia and also affirmed their unwavering support for Ukraine, the statement said.
Source: Voice of America
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