Kyiv, Ukraine
Reuters
Ukraine said on Monday its troops had regained more ground along eastern and southern fronts in what President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described as progress in a “difficult” week for Kyiv’s counter-offensive against Russian forces.
Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar also noted a surge in fighting around the shattered eastern city of Bakhmut, captured by Russian forces in May after 10 months of battles.
Ukrainian servicemen operate a Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft gun during their combat shift, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv region, Ukraine, on 30th June, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Valentyn Ogirenko/File photo
A Russian drone attack killed at least two people and injured 19 in the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy on Monday, prompting President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to call for a major upgrade of anti-aircraft defences.
An official building and two residential buildings were damaged in an attack carried out with four drones, the Sumy regional administration said on the messaging app Telegram.
Rescues work at a site of a residential building hit by a suicide drone, which local authorities consider to be Iranian made unmanned aerial vehicles, Shahed-131/136, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Sumy, Ukraine, on 3rd July, 2023. PICTURE: Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Sumy Region/Handout via Reuters
Images posted by Ukraine’s state emergency service showed mangled buildings and courtyards scattered with debris as rescue workers tackled a fire.
“Unfortunately, our country does not yet have a sufficient number of high-quality air defence systems to protect our entire territory and shoot down all enemy targets,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.
“We will do everything possible and impossible to make our air defences the strongest.”
Ukraine, he said, needed to protect its own territory and “in future become the basis of a European air shield. This is absolutely necessary and absolutely possible.”
He said Ukrainian air defences had downed more than 3,000 targets of various types over the 16 months of war.
Another air-raid alert was declared in the Sumy region several hours after the morning strike.
Kyiv’s military had earlier on Monday reported shooting down 13 of 17 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Moscow overnight in a separate attack on several parts of the country.
Russia, which launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has stepped up air strikes against Ukraine in recent weeks, and Ukraine has launched a counteroffensive to try to retake occupied territory.
– DAN PELESCHUK, Kyiv, Ukraine/Reuters
“Last week was difficult on the front line. But we are making progress,” Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
“We are moving forward, step by step! I thank everyone who is defending Ukraine, everyone who is leading this war to Ukraine’s victory!”
In an initial report on Telegram, Maliar said the Ukrainian military took back 37.4 square kilometres of territory in heavy fighting in the past week.
She said Russian forces were attacking near Lyman, in the northern Donetsk region and near Avdiivka and Mariinka, long-contested cities further south – to the west of Bakhmut.
In a later report, Maliar said fighting near Bakhmut had intensified and “a struggle is underway to seize the initiative.
“Today, the enemy attempted to advance in this sector. And our forces achieved a measure of success,” she wrote. “The situation is changing rapidly and control over positions can be lost and regained twice within a day.”
Russian forces, she said, were setting up three defensive lines on certain fronts. Ukrainian forces had advanced near a village south of Bakhmut, while fighting was continuing to the north and the city experienced heavy exchanges of fire.
General Oleksander Syrskyi, in charge of Ukraine’s land forces, reported advances of troops on the fringes of Bakhmut and “effective destruction of Russians”.
Earlier in the day, Maliar said Ukraine had reclaimed nine square kilometres over the past week along the eastern front “as a result of improving the operational [tactical] position and aligning the front line”.
In the south, Ukraine had regained 28.4 square km of territory, bringing the total area of recaptured territory along that front to 158.4 square kilometres.
Russia, which launched its invasion in February 2022, said at the weekend its forces had repelled Ukrainian attacks near villages ringing Bakhmut and in areas further south, particularly near the hilltop town of Vuhledar. It also reported success in containing Ukrainian troops in the north-east.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Monday that a brief mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group last month had not affected Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.
“The provocation did not affect the actions of army groups [involved in the operation],” he told a ministry meeting.
Reuters could not confirm the battlefield accounts.
– Additional reporting by LIDIA KELLY in Melbourne, Australia
