Thank you for following developments today, we will now be closing this blog. You can read all our Ukraine coverage here.
There are signs of some Ukrainian momentum on at least one point on the front line, on the western end of Donetsk region, south of the town of Velyka Novosilka. Two villages were officially reported liberated earlier on Sunday, Blahodatne, and Neskutchne. They were the first settlements officially confirmed liberated since the start of the counteroffensive a week ago.
This evening, the deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said a third village had fallen to the advancing Ukrainian forces, Makarivka, a couple of kilometres to the south.
“In the areas where our troops are on the defensive, no position was lost,” Maliar added on the Telegram messaging app.
Makarivka is believed to have been taken on Sunday morning.
“By the way, we didn’t move our main forces yet,” a Ukrainian officer texted from the southern front. “So there are grounds to believe in the best.”
The advance south from Velyka Novosilka represents the most significant gains of the counteroffensive to date, but the Ukrainian forces still have some way to go before they even reach the Russian’s main fortified defensive line.
Updated
My colleague Julian Borger is in Kyiv and is reporting on Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
Ukraine’s armed forces have claimed to have liberated two frontline villages in western Donetsk, he writes, almost a week after the launch of counteroffensive operations.
Soldiers were shown in video footage raising the Ukrainian flag over the village of Blahodatne, south of the town of Velyka Novosilka, one of the main axes of the counteroffensive so far. Troops from another brigade filmed themselves with their unit’s banner in Neskuchne.
You can read his full report here
Updated
Closing summary
The time in Kyiv is coming up to 8.30pm. Here’s a roundup of today’s news about Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Three civilians have been killed and ten others people wounded after Russian forces opened fire on a boat carrying flood evacuees to the Ukrainian-controlled city of Kherson.
A 74-year-old man used his body to shield a woman from Russian fire and was hit in the back, Reuters reports. Two of the ten people wounded were law enforcement officers.
Russia and Ukraine have simultaneously swapped nearly 100 prisoners each. The Ukrainian prisoners included members of the national guard and border guards who had been in action in several places, including near the city of Mariupol and the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Russia’s defence ministry said Ukraine had made an unsuccessful attempt to attack a vessel of its Black Sea fleet which was protecting natural gas pipelines. The ship was monitoring the situation along Turkstream and Blue Stream pipelines route in the Black Sea, the ministry said.
The Kremlin has also said there was no foundation for talks with Ukraine. ‘There is practically no precondition for an agreement at the moment. Moreover, there is no foundation, even flimsy, for any kind of dialogue’, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told Rossiya state television.
In other key developments:
Russian air defence systems have shot down a Ukrainian missile near the Russian-controlled port city of Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov, the TASS news agency reported.
Ukrainian troops said they had recaptured a village from Russian forces in the south-east, the first liberated settlement they have claimed since launching a counterattack this week. The settlement was identified as Blahodatne in Donetsk region in an unverified video. “We’re seeing the first results of the counter-offensive actions, localised results,” Valeryi Shershen, spokesperson for Ukraine’s “Tavria” military sector, said on television.
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had shot down a Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jet in Kherson region, where the breach of the Kakhovka dam on Tuesday led to major flooding. Russian forces also repelled three Ukrainian attacks in Zaporizhzhia region, the ministry said.
Russia’s most powerful mercenary said on Sunday that his Wagner fighters would not sign any contracts with the Russian defence ministry, hours after the minister, Sergei Shoigu, sought to bring volunteer detachments under its sway. In response to a request for comment, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner group, said: “Wagner will not sign any contracts with Shoigu,,” adding that the minister “cannot properly manage military formations.” Wagner was integrated into the overall system and completely subordinate to the interests of Russia, he said, but its command structure would be damaged by reporting to Shoigu.
Kyiv’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said Russian forces blew up the Khakhovka dam to prevent Ukrainian troops from launching an offensive and advancing in the southern Kherson region. She said the action was also intended to help Russia deploy reserves to the Zaporizhzhia and Bakhmut areas.
Russia’s defence minister awarded medals to soldiers on Sunday after Moscow said its forces had destroyed four German-made Leopard tanks and five US-made Bradley fighting vehicles while repelling a Ukrainian counteroffensive. Sergei Shoigu was shown on state television awarding the Hero of Russia gold star, Russia’s highest military honour, to soldiers who said they had destroyed enemy tanks and armoured vehicles.
Two drones crashed early on Sunday in Russia’s Kaluga region – one near the village of Strelkovka, another in the woods in the Medynsky municipal district, according to the governor of the region, Vladislav Shapsha. There were no casualties and only minimal damage, Shapsha said on Telegram.
A US musician was arrested in Moscow accused of selling mephedrone. Russian news media reported on Saturday that a US musician, Michael Travis Leake, who has lived in Russia for more than a decade had been arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking, according to the Associated Press.
That’s it from me, Donna Ferguson, and the Ukraine Live blog. Thanks for following along. If you want to read more news about Ukraine, you can do so here.
Updated
The Ukrainian prisoners that Russia has just released included members of the national guard and border guards, Reuters reports.
The head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, Andriy Yermak, said those released had been in action in several places, including near the city of Mariupol and the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Updated
More details have emerged about the Russian attack on a boat carrying flood evacuees.
“Three civilians died, ten more were wounded, including two law enforcement officers,” the governor of Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, said.
In a statement on Telegram, he said a 74-year-old man used his body to shield a woman from Russian fire and was hit in the back and died.
Updated
Russia and Ukraine each return nearly 100 prisoners
Russia and Ukraine have both simultaneously announced the return of nearly 100 soldiers from each side.
The TASS news agency quoted Russia’s defence ministry as saying that 94 Russians in Ukrainian captivity had been released and would be taken to a medical institution to be examined.
The head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, Andriy Yermak, said that 95 Ukrainian service members had been returned, including some wounded, according to Reuters.
Updated
Flood evacuees fleeing to Kherson killed and wounded by Russian forces
Three people were killed and 10 wounded when Russian forces shelled a boat carrying evacuees from flooded occupied territory to the Ukrainian-controlled city of Kherson, Reuters has just reported.
It isn’t clear whether this is the same boat in which six civilians were wounded that I referred to in my previous post.
Updated
Six civilians were wounded on Sunday when Russian forces opened fire on a boat being used to evacuate civilians, Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff has said.
The civilians were fleeing from flooded, occupied territory to the Ukrainian-controlled city of Kherson, Reuters reported.
The area they were in experienced severe flooding after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, which both Kyiv and Moscow have accused each other of deliberately blowing up.
“The Russian army attacked a boat with civilians evacuating from the left bank of Kherson region,” Andriy Yermak wrote on Telegram.
“They opened fire at the backs of civilians. Six people were wounded. They arrived in Kherson and were taken to hospital … Doctors are fighting for the lives of the wounded,” he wrote.
Updated
Russian air defence systems have shot down a Ukrainian missile near the Russian-controlled port city of Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov, the TASS news agency has reported.
Updated
Ukrainian troops said on Sunday they had recaptured a village from Russian forces in the south-east, the first liberated settlement they have claimed since launching a counterattack this week.
Soldiers hoisted the Ukrainian flag at a bombed-out building in an unverified video published by Ukraine’s 68th Jaeger Brigade, which identified the settlement as Blahodatne in Donetsk region, Reuters reported.
“We’re seeing the first results of the counter-offensive actions, localised results,” Valeryi Shershen, spokesperson for Ukraine’s “Tavria” military sector, said on television.
He said the village lay on the edge of the Donetsk and Zaporizhzia regions a few kilometres south of the Kyiv-controlled village of Velyka Novosilka.
Updated
Ukrainian soldiers stand in front of a building with a Ukrainian flag on it in a location given as Blahodatne, Donetsk region.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday that its forces had shot down a Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jet in Kherson region, where the breach of the Kakhovka dam on Tuesday led to major flooding.
Russian forces also repelled three Ukrainian attacks in Zaporizhzhia region, the ministry said.
Reuters was unable to immediately verify the reports.
Updated
Ukraine 'tried to attack Russian vessel near gas pipelines in Black Sea'
Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday that Ukraine had made an unsuccessful attempt to attack a vessel of Russia’s Black Sea fleet which was protecting natural gas pipelines.
The ship was monitoring the situation along Turkstream and Blue Stream pipelines route in the Black Sea, the ministry said.
Updated
Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that counteroffensive and defensive operations were taking place in Ukraine, but would not say what stage they were at.
“It’s interesting what Putin said about our counteroffensive. It is important that Russia always feels this: that they do not have long left, in my opinion,” the Ukrainian president added.
Zelenskiy’s comments came after Vladimir Putin claimed that Kyiv’s long-expected counteroffensive was already failing.
Russia’s most powerful mercenary said on Sunday that his Wagner fighters would not sign any contracts with the Russian defence ministry, hours after the minister, Sergei Shoigu, sought to bring volunteer detachments under its sway.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner group, has repeatedly attacked Vladimir Putin’s militaryleaders for what he casts as treachery for failing to fight the war in Ukraine properly.
Neither Shoigu nor the chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov have commented in public on Prigozhin’s insults and criticism, Reuters reported.
But the defence ministry said on Saturday that Shoigu had ordered all volunteer detachments to sign contracts with his ministry by the end of the month, a step the ministry said would increase the effectiveness of the Russian army.
The ministry did not mention Wagner in its statement, but Russian media reported that it was an attempt by Shoigu to bring the mercenaries to heel.
“Wagner will not sign any contracts with Shoigu,” Prigozhin said in response to a request for comment.
He said Wagner was integrated into the overall system and completely subordinate to the interests of Russia, but that its highly efficient command structure would be damaged by reporting to Shoigu.
“Shoigu cannot properly manage military formations,” he said, adding that Wagner coordinated its actions in Ukraine with general Sergei Surovikin, nicknamed “General Armageddon” by the Russian media.
Updated
Russian forces blew up the Khakhovka dam to prevent Ukrainian troops from advancing in the southern Kherson region, Kyiv’s deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said on Sunday.
Ukraine has accused Russian forces of blowing up the dam from inside its associated hydroelectric power station. The site has been under Russian occupation since the early weeks of the invasion in February last year.
Moscow has blamed the destruction of the dam on Ukraine. Each side has accused the other of shelling civilians as rescue efforts are carried out, Reuters reported.
“The explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station was apparently carried out with the intention of preventing the Ukrainian defence forces from launching an offensive in the Kherson sector,” Maliar said on Telegram.
She said the action, which unleashed a vast flood which inundated towns and villages, trapping residents and sweeping away homes, was also intended to help Russia deployreserves to the Zaporizhzhia and Bakhmut areas.
Updated
Russia’s defence minister awarded medals to soldiers on Sunday after Moscow said its forces had destroyed four German-made Leopard tanks and five US-made Bradley fighting vehicles while repelling a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Sergei Shoigu was shown on state television awarding the Hero of Russia gold star, Russia’s highest military honour, to soldiers who said they had destroyed enemy tanks and armoured vehicles.
The soldiers did not identify the tanks in public.
The defence ministry has published several videos and pictures in recent days showing strikes on Ukrainian-staffed armoured vehicles and tanks from Ka-52 attack helicopters and drones.
Reuters was unable to immediately verify battlefield claims from either side.
Updated
No foundation for dialogue with Ukraine, says Kremlin
The Kremlin has said there is no foundation for talks with Ukraine.
‘There is practically no precondition for an agreement at the moment. Moreover, there is no foundation, even flimsy, for any kind of dialogue’, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told Rossiya state television.
Updated
The destruction of the Kakhovka dam was a fast-moving disaster that is swiftly evolving into a long-term environmental catastrophe affecting drinking water, food supplies and ecosystems reaching into the Black Sea.
The short-term dangers can be seen from outer space — tens of thousands of parcels of land flooded, and more to come. Experts say the long-term consequences will be generational.
The Associated Press reported:
For every flooded home and farm, there are fields upon fields of newly planted grains, fruits and vegetables whose irrigation canals are drying up. Thousands of fish were left gasping on mud flats. Fledgling water birds lost their nests and their food sources. Countless trees and plants were drowned.
If water is life, then the draining of the Kakhovka reservoir creates an uncertain future for the region of southern Ukraine that was an arid plain until the damming of the Dnipro River 70 years ago. The Kakhovka Dam was the last in a system of six Soviet-era dams on the river, which flows from Belarus to the Black Sea.
Then the Dnipro became part of the frontline after Russia’s invasion last year.
“All this territory formed its own particular ecosystem, with the reservoir included,” said Kateryna Filiuta, an expert in protected habitats for the Ukraine Nature Conservation Group.
Updated
Houses and a sports stadium are seen underwater and polluted by oil in Kherson, Ukraine, yesterday.
More now from that ISW daily update.
Russian sources are claiming that Ukraine has tactical advantages in conducting assaults at night due to Western-provided equipment with advanced night optics systems.
Russian sources claimed that #Ukraine's armed forces have tactical advantages in conducting assaults at night due to Western-provided equipment with superior night optics systems. https://t.co/mZr7Go9rqf https://t.co/UrnbjBmz0C pic.twitter.com/P7aErTgubV
— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) June 11, 2023
A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces are launching assaults at night because western-provided equipment provides Ukrainian forces with “excellent” night vision optics.
Russian sources have widely claimed that Ukrainian forces have started or intensified assaults at night in recent days, and Ukrainian forces may be increasingly leveraging the advantages provided by western systems.
Reuters reports that two drones crashed early on Sunday in Russia’s Kaluga region, the governor of the region, Vladislav Shapsha, said on the Telegram messaging app.
One drone crashed near the village of Strelkovka, another in the woods in the Medynsky municipal district.
The Kaluga region borders the Moscow region to the north.
According to preliminary information, there were no casualties and only minimal damage, Shapsha said on Telegram. Reuters could not independently verify the report.
Earlier in the day inside Russia, 15 cars of an empty freight train derailed in the southern Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, the local governor said late on Saturday, adding there was no immediate information about the cause.
The accident happened near a train station in the Alexeyevsky municipal district and the train was empty, Gladkov said. Reuters could not independently verify this report.
American musician arrested in Moscow accused of selling mephedrone
Russian news media reported Saturday that an American musician who has lived in Russia for more than a decade has been arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking, according to the Associated Press.
The reports said Michael Travis Leake is suspected of selling mephedrone, whose effects are similar to those of cocaine and MDMA. A Moscow court ordered him to be held for two months in pre-trial detention, the reports said.
He faces charges of production or distribution of drugs, which carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
An Instagram page under the name Travis Leake Instagram identifies him as the singer for the band Lovi Noch, meaning Seize the Night. News reports said Leake is a former paratrooper with the US military and has lived in Moscow since 2010.
Russian drug laws are strict. WNBA star Brittney Griner was arrested in February 2022 after vape canisters containing cannabis oil were found in her luggage at a Moscow airport. She was sentenced to nine years in prison, but was released in December in an exchange for US-imprisoned Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
The US state department said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press that it was aware of the reports that a US citizen had recently been arrested in Moscow. It said when a US citizen is detained overseas, the department “pursues consular access as soon as possible and works to provide all appropriate consular assistance”.
The department said it would have no further comment due to privacy considerations.
Ukrainian forces are conducting counteroffensive operations in at least four areas of the front, the US thinktank the Institute for the Study of War had said in its daily update.
Ukrainian eastern group of forces spokesperson Colonel Serhiy Cherevaty noted that Ukrainian forces advanced up to 1,400m in unspecified areas of the Bakhmut front, and Russian milbloggers reported Ukrainian advances northwest and northeast of Bakhmut, ISW says.
Russian sources reported Ukrainian activity in Luhansk Oblast near Bilohorivka, while the Russian defence ministry and other Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian troops conducted localised attacks in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area, particularly in the Velyka Novosilka area.
ISW reports geolocated footage posted on 10 June additionally indicates that Ukrainian forces in western Zaporizhia Oblast made gains during counterattacks southwest and southeast of Orikhiv.
It says Ukrainian forces are unsurprisingly taking casualties in initial attacks against some of the best-prepared Russian forces in Ukraine. However, initial attacks – and particularly selected footage that Russian sources are intentionally disseminating and highlighting – are not representative of all Ukrainian operations.
Opening summary
Welcome back to our continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine, I’m Christine Kearney bringing you the latest.
Russian news media are reporting that an American musician who has lived in Russia for more than a decade has been arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking, according to the Associated Press.
The reports said Michael Travis Leake is suspected of selling mephedrone. A Moscow court ordered him to be held for two months in pre-trial detention, the reports said.
An Instagram page under the name Travis Leake Instagram page identifies him as the singer for the band Lovi Noch, which means Seize the Night.
Meanwhile US thinktank the Institute for the Study of War had said in its daily update that Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations in at least four areas of the front.
More details shortly, in other key developments:
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that counteroffensive and defensive operations were taking place in Ukraine, a day after Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin said Kyiv’s long-vaunted drive to retake territory was well under way. Zelenskiy would not say what stage they were at, but to pass on to Putin that his generals were optimistic and in ‘positive mood’.
Counterattacking Ukrainian forces have advanced up to 1,400 metres at a number of sections of the front line near the eastern city of Bakhmut in the past day, a Ukraine military spokesperson said on Saturday.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence said over the past 48 hours “significant” Ukrainian operations have taken place in several sectors of eastern and southern Ukraine. Ukrainian forces have “likely made good progress” and “penetrated the first line of Russian defences”, the MoD added. However, in other areas “Ukrainian progress has been slower”.
The Russian defence ministry said on Saturday that Ukraine’s forces have continued “unsuccessful” attempts in the past 24 hours to launch attacks south of Donetsk and in Zaporizhzhia regions, as well as in the area of the eastern city of Bakhmut.
A drone attack by Russian forces killed three people and injured 27 people, including three children, in Ukraine’s Odesa region in the early hours of Saturday, according to Ukraine’s southern command. Emergency services said but the fire had been rapidly put out and 12 people were rescued from the building.
The UN’s top aid official Martin Griffiths has warned Ukraine’s humanitarian situation is “hugely worse” after the Kakhova dam rupture.
German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said on Saturday that he planned to speak to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on the phone soon to urge him to withdraw troops from Ukraine.
Canada’s minister, Justin Trudeau, landed in Kyiv on Saturday and said Canada will be part of a multinational effort to train Ukrainian fighter pilots. He also announced C$500m ($375m) worth of military aid for Kyiv and said the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam was a “direct consequence of Russia’s war”.
Russian activists and dissidents say Russian authorities in Kherson region are preventing 1,842 left bank residents, including 338 urgent cases around Olekshy, and nearby, from leaving. The figure includes 148 children and 243 elderly people, said the Anti-War Human Rights Coalition.
Russia has fired missiles and attack drones at the central Ukrainian region of Poltava overnight, inflicting “some damage of infrastructure and equipment” at the Myrhorod military airfield, according to the regional governor.
A £150m fund to help Ukrainians into their own homes has been announced by the UK government. More than 124,000 people have arrived in the UK under the Homes for Ukraine scheme since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year. The UK will also provide an extra £16m of humanitarian aid to Ukraine after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Saturday that Iceland’s decision to suspend its embassy operations in Moscow “destroys” bilateral cooperation adding the action would elicit a “corresponding” response.
The southern reach of the Dnipro River is likely to return to its banks by 16 June after the breach of Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam this week, a Russian-installed official said on Saturday. Vladimir Saldo said the water level at Nova Kakhovka, the town adjacent to the dam on the downstream side, had now dropped three metres (10ft) from Tuesday’s peak, Reuters reported.
German investigators are examining evidence suggesting a sabotage team used Poland as an operating base to damage the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea in September, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Ukraine’s nuclear energy agency says it has put the last operating reactor at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant into a “cold shutdown” as a safety precaution amid flooding from the collapse of the Kakhovka dam.
South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has briefed Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping about an upcoming mission to broker peace by African leaders to Russia and Ukraine to try and broker peace, Pretoria said on Saturday.
The UN has helped boost Russian exports of food and fertilisers, facilitating a steady flow of ships to its ports ahead of an important grain deal deadline. Top UN trade official Rebeca Grynspan met with Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Vershinin as Moscow threatens to walk away from a deal allowing the safe export of food and fertiliser from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports on 17 July if obstacles to its own shipments are not removed.
