Moscow claims to have repelled major attack
Russia’s defence ministry has claimed it has fought off a large-scale attack on its forces in the south-eastern Donetsk region, a claim that has not been independently verified. It said it killed 250 Ukrainian troops and destroyed 16 tanks, three infantry fighting vehicles and 21 armoured combat vehicles in the process. You can read the latest report on the claimed attack here.
It was not immediately clear whether or not the reported attack represented the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive that Kyiv has been promising for months. Ukrainian officials have urged silence ahead of any such campaign.
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Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that Russia is using a network of suppliers to evade international sanctions designed to prevent it from making missiles and other weapons.
In a video address on Sunday evening, Zelenskiy said unnamed countries and companies were helping Russia acquire technology, with the emphasis on producing missiles. Russia has launched hundreds of missiles against Ukrainian targets since last October.
Unfortunately, the terrorist state manages to use the technologies of the world through a network of suppliers, manages to bypass international sanctions.”
Zelenski said that Ukraine was well aware of all of Russia’s efforts to evade sanctions and will seek to ensure that “there are no products of the free world in Russian missiles”.
In April, a senior Zelenskiy aide said Ukrainian forces were finding a growing number of components from China in Russian weapons used in Ukraine, as western supplies are squeezed by sanctions. China has denied sending military equipment to Russia.
Amid the speculation about whether Ukraine has launched an offensive, initial “shaping” operations by Ukraine are already known to have begun. These include moves such as long-range missile strikes on Russian military hubs.
Zelenskiy has publicly said that Ukraine is ready to launch its long-awaited counteroffensive but has said nothing since the Russian defence ministry’s claim emerged in the early hours of Monday.
The president said in an interview published at the weekend that he feared “a large number of soldiers will die” and wanted more air defence systems to protect his troops.
As Dan Sabbagh reports, Ukraine has readied 12 brigades, an estimated 60,000 troops, to spearhead an attack it hopes to show it can force the Russian invaders, who total about 300,000, from its territory, some of which has been occupied since 2014.
At least 90 supporters of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny were reportedly arrested on Sunday after defying authorities to hold demonstrations to mark his 47th birthday, the Associated Press has said.
Navalny is serving a nine-year sentence for fraud and contempt of court, charges he says were trumped up to punish him for his work to expose official corruption and organise anti-Kremlin protests. He is facing a new trial on extremism charges that could keep him in prison for decades.
Police beefed up their presence in Moscow and moved quickly to round up those who tried to stage individual pickets on Pushkin Square and elsewhere in the capital. One man managed to throw around leaflets before being whisked away.
A woman holding a small black balloon with the words “Happy Birthday!” who was clad in a hoody with “You aren’t alone” written on it was among those detained. She asked officers why they were detaining her, but they didn’t answer.
Navalny’s supporters also showed up in St. Petersburg and other Russian cities, holding one-person pickets and leaving signs and graffiti in Navalny’s support.
Navalny said in a social media post his allies released that he would obviously prefer to spend his birthday with a family breakfast, kisses from his children and gifts, but “life is such that social progress and a better future can only be achieved if a certain number of people are willing to pay for the right to have beliefs.”
“The more there are such people, the smaller the price each has to pay,” he said. “And a day will certainly come when it will be routine and not dangerous at all to tell the truth and stand for justice in Russia.”
The Russian defence ministry has released drone footage it claims showed the destruction of Ukrainian armoured vehicles in the Donetsk region. The footage has not been verified.
It also shared footage it said showed a Russian reconnaissance helicopter helping direct the Russian response to the apparent attack of Donetsk.
Russia’s Pacific Fleet forces have started military exercises in the waters off the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk, Russia’s Defence Ministry has said.
“More than 60 warships and support vessels, about 35 naval aviation aircraft, coastal troops and more than 11,000 military personnel are involved in the exercise of the Pacific Fleet forces grouping,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.
The exercises are due to last until 20 June.
The raids by anti-Putin Russian forces in the Belgorod region are becoming something of a focal point, the ISW has said in its latest assessment. Two partisan groups have issued a video showing a dozen Russian soldiers being held captive and Belgorod’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, has said he was willing to meet the pro-Ukrainian forces to arrange a prisoner transfer but apparently did not turn up. The confused response in Russia suggests Moscow has not yet worked out its response to the cross-border raids, the US thinktank said.
It cited one prominent Russian military blogger Igor Girkin who criticised Moscow for failing to invest in local defence forces in the region, and said trying to tackle the situation in Belgorod now “would likely end in an attritional operation reminiscent of Bakhmut”.
Moscow claims to have repelled major attack
Russia’s defence ministry has claimed it has fought off a large-scale attack on its forces in the south-eastern Donetsk region, a claim that has not been independently verified. It said it killed 250 Ukrainian troops and destroyed 16 tanks, three infantry fighting vehicles and 21 armoured combat vehicles in the process. You can read the latest report on the claimed attack here.
It was not immediately clear whether or not the reported attack represented the start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive that Kyiv has been promising for months. Ukrainian officials have urged silence ahead of any such campaign.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) noted Ukraine’s continuing preparations for its counteroffensive in its assessment on Saturday, including the interview with Volodymyr Zelenskiy published by the Wall Street Journal in which he says the country is ready, though it may take time and come at a heavy cost.
However, it said little more detail is likely to come out when it does begin. Ukrainian deputy defence minister Hanna Malyar said on Saturday that “military plans love silence”.
Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, Ihor Klymenko, said over the weekend all nine brigades of the “offensive guard” had been formed and were ready.
The Ukrainian defence ministry and military did not immediately respond to written requests for comment regarding the claimed attack.
Ukrainian defence minister Oleksii Reznikov did however publish a cryptic message on Twitter on Sunday, quoting Depeche Mode’s track Enjoy the Silence.
Energy facility on fire in Belgorod
Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Russian region of Belgorod, said there were no casualties and that services had not been affected by the drone attack at an energy facility in the region that caused a fire.
Belgorod has been the target of repeated attacks recently, carried out by pro-Ukraine Russian partisans.
You can read more about how Belgorod has become part of Vladimir Putin’s war here.
The Russian defence ministry has released video footage of what it claims is the Ukrainian attack. It is not possible to verify the footage, which shows tanks in a field being hit. It appears to show the attack happening in daylight hours. The footage was released just before 2am local time.
Summary
Welcome to our continuing live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
Russia’s defence ministry has claimed that Kyiv has launched a “major” attack in the southern Donetsk region using tank and mechanical units. It claimed the six mechanised battalions and two tank battalions tried to break through its lines but were unsuccessful.
It is not yet possible to verify the Russian defence ministry’s claim. We will bring you more updates as they come.
On Sunday, Kyiv urged “silence” about any plans to reclaim territory that Russia has seized in the 15-month long war.
Earlier, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine was ready to launch a counteroffensive to recapture Russian-occupied territory. In an interview published on Saturday, the Ukrainian president said: “We strongly believe that we will succeed. I don’t know how long it will take … but we are going to do it and we are ready.”
Separately, the governor of the Russian region of Belgorod has said an energy facility is on fire in region, blaming a bomb dropped by a drone. Vyacheslav Gladkov said there were no casualties and that services had not been affected.
Below is a summary of all the other latest developments:
A two-year-old girl has been found dead under the rubble of a house after a missile attack that hit several buildings near the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the regional governor said. Another 22 people were injured, including five children, said Serhiy Lysak. Three boys – aged 15, 11 and six – were in intensive care after the strike.
Russia launched a wave of air attacks on Ukraine early on Sunday morning but military officials jn Kyiv said air defence systems repelled all missiles and drones on their approach to the capital. All of Ukraine was under air raid alerts for nearly three hours.
The Russian defence ministry has said its forces have used artillery to repel a cross-border incursion by Ukrainian saboteurs, Interfax news agency reported. The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said earlier on Sunday that fighting with a “Ukrainian saboteur group” was taking place in the town of Novaya Tavolzhanka, near the Ukrainian border.
A Ukrainian minister has expressed “disbelief” after learning that nearly half of Kyiv bomb shelters inspected during an initial audit were closed or unfit for use. Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine’s minister of strategic industries, said on Sunday that out of 1,078 shelters examined on the first day, 359 were unprepared and another 122 locked, while 597 were found to be usable.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, has said he is willing to meet a pro-Ukraine group of Russian fighters keeping two Russian soldiers captive. The group said earlier it was willing to hand over the soldiers in exchange for a meeting with the governor.
Ukrainian forces have shelled a market area in the town of Shebekino, near the Ukrainian border, according to Gladkov. He said no one was injured but the attack had caused fires to break out near the market, a private area and a grain depot.
The Kremlin has said any supply of long-range missiles to Kyiv by France and Germany would lead to a further round of “spiralling tension” in the Ukraine conflict. Britain last month became the first country to supply Ukraine with long-range cruise missiles.
Zelenskiy has said that Russia’s war, now in its 16th month, has killed at least 500 Ukrainian children. It was impossible to establish the exact number of children who have become casualties, however, because of the continuing fighting and because some areas are under Russian occupation, he said.
Four people have been detained in a criminal investigation into the death of a Kyiv woman outside a locked air-raid shelter, the Kyiv regional prosecutor’s office has said. It said one person, a security guard who had failed to unlock the doors, remained under arrest, while three others, including a local official, had been put under house arrest.
Five drones were shot down and four were jammed and did not hit their targets in Dzhankoi in Crimea, according to a Russian official. There were no casualties but windows were broken in several houses, said Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-backed head of Crimea’s administration.
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