Ukrainian soldiers in front of a building with Ukraine’s national flag in the liberated village of Blahodatne in the southwestern Donetsk region, June 11, 2023

Sunday’s Coverage: Zelenskiy — Ukrainian Counter-Offensive Has Begun

Map: Institute for Study of War

UPDATE 1735 GMT:

Denmark is sending $36 million of ammunition, including 2,000 artillery shells, to Ukraine.

Foreign Ministerr Lars Løkke Rasmussen said:

The offensive has been announced. It is slowly starting. Ukraine managed to keep the Russians at a distance. Now it is time to respond in kind. For this, they need to have the necessary capabilities. This also applies to ammunition.

UPDATE 1649 GMT:

Leading Scandinavian organizations and business have announced a boycott of the US-based snack food company Mondelez because of the continued sales of its products in Russia.

The SAS and Norwegian Air airlines, the SJ railway group, the Strawberry hotel chain, the Elkjop retail chain, the Fjord Line shipping group, and the Norwegian Football Association are among those in the boycott.

Mondelez’s products include Oreo cookies, Barny biscuits, Milka chocolate, Alpen Gold, Toblerone, Freia, and Marabou.

The company owns three factories in Russia.

UPDATE 1641 GMT:

Russian bombing of Orikhiv, near the frontline in the Zaporizhzhia region, has killed one man and wounded another.

Governor Yuri Malashko said three bombs damaged private houses and communications.

Several hundred residents remain in the town, even though infrastructure there has been largely destroyed by Russian attacks.

UPDATE 1202 GMT:

The waters of the flooded Dnipro River are receding, but 46 settlements remain inundated in the Kherson region, says Ukrainian governor Oleksandr Prokudin.

The waters have fallen by 64 cm (25 inches) from the peak after last Tuesday’s demolition of the Nova Kakhovka Dam.

Of the still-flooded settlements, 32 are on the Ukrainian side with more than 3,700 houses. Another 14 settlements are on the Russian-occupied east (left) bank.

Produkin said more than 2,700 people, including 228 children, have been rescued from the Ukrainian-held right bank. More than 100 have been brought out of Russian-occupied territory despite shelling and obstruction by Moscow’s forces.

UPDATE 1044 GMT:

The latest Russian attacks on the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine have killed one civilian in Avdiivka and injured two in Ivanivske.

Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said shelling of five settlements and two communities damaged two houses, outbuildings, and a depot.

In the Kharkiv region in the northeast,four districts were attacked with mortars, artillery, and missiles, damaging at least 16 houses, an industrial facility, garages, and outbuildings. One man was injured in the village of Vilkhuvatka and another in Shevchenkove.

UPDATE 1031 GMT:

Pro-Russian hackers of the NoName group have targeted Swiss Government websites in a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.

The Swiss Parliament is preparing for a video address by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday.

Switzerland’s National Cyber Security Centre said, “Various websites of the Federal Administration and enterprises affiliated with the Confederation were unavailable….The NCSC is analyzing the attack together with the administrative units concerned and defining appropriate measures.”

The NCSC said NoName also attacked the Swiss Parliament’s website last week.

UPDATE 0951 GMT:

The Ukrainian military has claimed the liberation of a fifth village in the southwest Donestk region, near the Zaporizhzhia border.

Novodarovka is to the west of Velyka Novosilka, the nearest Ukrainian-held town in the counter-offensive.

The Ukraine military said the Russians tried to hold up the advance by blowing up a dam on the Mokri Yaly River.

UPDATE 0940 GMT:

In the latest shot in its feud with Wagner Group mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russia’s Defense Ministry says it has signed a contract with the Akhmat group of Chechen special forces.

On Saturday, Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu issued a decree requiring all “volunteer detachments” to conclude a contract with the Ministry before July 1.

Prigozhin said on Sunday, “Wagner will not sign any contracts with Shoygu….Shoygu cannot properly manage military formations.”

As its months-long battle with Prigozhin escalates, the Defense Ministry has promoted Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov and his forces as an alternative to Wagner, which carried out a six-month “human wave” assault to occupy Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.

UPDATE 0931 GMT:

Ukraine’s forces are claiming the liberation of a fourth village in the past 24 hours.

Storozheve is in the same area as the other three villages, as Ukrainian troops advancing south from Velyka Novosilka in the southwest Donetsk region near the Zaporizhzhia border.

Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said:

The national flag is flying over Storozheve again, and it will be the same with every settlement until we liberate all Ukrainian land….

To be continued….

Glory to Ukraine!

Russian military observers say fighting is now in the village of Urozhaine to the south.

UPDATE 0924 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says the International Criminal Court has begun an investigation of the demolition of the Nova Kakhovka Dam in the south of the country last Tuesday.

In his nightly video address to the nation, Zelenskiy said ICC representatives have visited the flooded Kherson region.

UPDATE 0920 GMT:

Russia and Ukraine have exchanged almost 100 POWs each.

The freed Ukrainian prisoners included members of the national guard and border guards captured near the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant in northern Ukraine, in the opening days of the invasion, and near Mariupol during the 12-week Russian assault and siege of the port city in spring 2022.

Ukarine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy posted:

Every time we bring our people back from Russian captivity, we remember our fundamental goal: we will not leave anyone of ours, nothing of Ukraine to the enemy….

We remember everyone, we are searching for each and every one of them, and we have to bring them all back. And we will!

UPDATE 0911 GMT:

Russian forces have killed three evacuees and wounded 10.

The Russians firing on a boat carrying civilians away from flooded areas of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, following the demolition of the Nova Kakhovka Dam six days ago.

A 74-year-old man used his body to shield a woman and was hit in the back. Two law enforcement officers were among the wounded.

See also Who Gains From Destroying A Dam, Lives, and the Environment in Southern Ukraine?

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine’s forces have liberated three villages from Russian occupation in the opening days of a counter-offensive in the south and east of the country.

Video of Ukraine’s troops in Blahodatne, in the southwest Donetsk region near the border with Zaporizhzhia, was posted on Sunday afternoon. It was followed by a clip of a unit posing with their flag in the adjacent village of Neskuchne.

On Sunday night, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar confirmed the liberation of the next village of Makarivka, and said troops had advanced between 300 and 1,500 metres in two directions on the southern front.

Military spokesperoson Valeryi Shershen said on television, “We’re seeing the first results of the counteroffensive actions, localized results.”

Maliar added, “No positions were lost on the directions where our forces are on the defensive.”

A Ukraine military reporter assessed that the advance from Velyka Novosilka had liberated about 95 square km (36.7 square miles).

The map of the area, with the marker centered on Velyka Novosilka:

In a text from the southern front, a Ukrainian officer pointed to more gains in forthcoming days: “By the way, we didn’t move our main forces yet. So there are grounds to believe in the best.”

The Ukrainians are attacking on three other fronts, with 25 battles reported on Sunday. In the south, they are fighting south of the town of Orikhiv. In the east, the lines are around Bilohorivka in the northern Luhansk region, about 6 miles west of Luhansk city, and Bakhmut in northern Donetsk.

The assaults are accompanied by sabotage operations. On Sunday, railway lines supplying the Russian occupiers were blown up. A railway bridge at Yakimivka was struck in Zaporizhzhia, and an explosion in Kirovskoye in Crimea damaged a freight locomotive.