JUN 12, 2023
Ukraine says its troops have retaken seven villages from Russian forces in the country’s south and southeast. The reported gains emerged Monday in the early stages of the nation’s counteroffensive. Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar wrote on the Telegram app that the Ukrainian flag was again...
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On Sunday, Ukrainian officials said their troops took the Donestk villages of Blahodatne, Makarivka and Neskuchne — south of the town of Velyka Novosilka. Maliar reported Monday that the Zaporizhzhia province settlements of Lobkove, Levadne and Novodrivka were also now back under Ukrainian control.
Russian officials did not confirm Ukraine’s gains, which were impossible to verify and could be reversed in the to-and-fro of war. The gains amounted to only small bits of territory and underscored the difficulty of the battle ahead for Ukrainian forces, who will have to fight meter by meter to regain the roughly one-fifth of their country under Russian occupation.
Western analysts and military officials have cautioned that an effort to rid Ukraine of
entrenched and powerfully armed Russian troops could take years, and the success of the Ukrainian counteroffensive is far from certain. French President Emmanuel Macron said in Paris that the Ukrainian counteroffensive began several days ago and “is set to be deployed over several weeks, if not months.”
As Ukrainian troops probe Russian defenses, Kyiv’s forces face an enemy that has made mistakes and suffered setbacks in the 15-month-old war. But Moscow also has learned from those blunders and improved its weapons and skills. Russia has built heavily fortified defenses along the more than...
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Ukrainian troops are probing Russian defenses as spring gives way to a second summer of fighting, and Kyiv’s forces are facing an enemy that has made mistakes and suffered setbacks in
the 15-month-old war. But analysts say Moscow also has learned from those blunders and improved its weapons and skills.
Russia has built heavily fortified defenses along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, honed its electronic weapons to reduce Ukraine’s edge in combat drones, and turned heavy bombs from its massive Cold-War-era arsenal into precision-guided gliding munitions capable of striking targets without putting its warplanes at risk.
The changing Russian tactics along with increased troop numbers and improved weaponry could make it challenging for Ukraine to score any kind of quick decisive victory, threatening to turn it into a long battle of attrition.
JUN 13, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that he could order his troops to try to seize more land in Ukraine to protect bordering Russian territory. The threat made Tuesday carries questionable credibility because the Kremlin lacks full control over areas it already annexed. In some of his...
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Russian missiles rained down in a central Ukrainian city overnight, killing at least 11 people and wounding more than two dozen in a warehouse and an apartment building, regional officials said Tuesday.
The attack in Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown, comes as
Ukrainian forces are in the early stages of a counteroffensive, more than 15 months after Russia invaded.
Russian forces have unleashed overnight missile strikes repeatedly against targets across Ukraine in recent weeks, and Tuesday’s toll was among the highest from a single attack. In late April,
missile strikes hit an apartment building in the central city of Uman, killing 23 people, including six children.
