Extract from ABC News
ScienceRussia and Ukraine are suffering high numbers of military casualties as Kyiv fights to dislodge the Kremlin's forces from occupied areas in the early stages of its counteroffensive, according to British officials.
Key points:
- The Ukrainian president says Kyiv's long-anticipated counteroffensive is proceeding well
- A Russian-installed official says Ukraine has recaptured Piatykhatky, a village in the southern Zaporizhzhia region
- Western analysts and military officials have cautioned Ukraine's counteroffensive may last a long time
Russian losses are probably at their highest level since the peak of the battle for Bakhmut in March, UK military officials said in their regular assessment on Sunday.
According to British intelligence, the most intense fighting has centred on the south-eastern Zaporizhzhia province, around Bakhmut and further west in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk province.
While the update reported that Ukraine was on the offensive in these areas and had "made small advances", it said Russian forces were conducting "relatively effective defensive operations" in Ukraine's south.
Russia reported fierce fighting on three sections of the front line in Ukraine on Sunday, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised his troops for repelling enemy advances and said their counteroffensive was progressing well.
A Russian-installed official said Ukrainian troops had recaptured Piatykhatky, a village in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, and were entrenching themselves there while coming under fire from Russian artillery.
"The enemy's 'wave-like' offensives yielded results, despite enormous losses," the official, Vladimir Rogov, said on the Telegram messaging app.
Russia's defence ministry made no mention of Piatykhatky in its daily update, in which it said its forces had repelled Ukrainian attacks in three sections of the front line.
Russia's Vostok group of forces said Ukraine had failed to take the settlement.
The evening report by the general staff of Ukraine's armed forces also made no mention of Piatykhatky.
Last week, Ukraine said it had recaptured a nearby settlement, Lobkove, and villages further east, in the Donetsk region, at the start of its counteroffensive.
'We are going forward'
Mr Zelenskyy praised his troops for being "very effective in repelling assaults" near Avdiivka, one of the hotspots in the fighting in eastern Ukraine.
The long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive was proceeding well, he said in his nightly video address.
"Our troops are on the move: position by position, step by step, we are going forward," he said.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports.
Ukrainian officials have imposed an information blackout to help operational security, but they say Russia has suffered much greater losses than Ukraine during Kyiv's new assault.
A regional official said Ukrainian forces had destroyed a Russian ammunition dump in the occupied Kherson region, part of a weeks-long effort by Kyiv to disrupt Russian supply lines.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who rarely comments on the course of the war, made two unusually detailed remarks last week in which he derided the Ukrainian push and said Kyiv's forces had "no chance" despite being newly equipped with Western tanks.
His comments appeared to be designed to reassure Russians, nearly 16 months into the conflict, as Ukraine seeks to take back the 18 per cent of its territory that remains under Russian control.
A group of African leaders carried out a self-styled "peace mission" to both Ukraine and Russia in recent days to try to help end their nearly 16-month-old war, but the visit ended on Saturday with no immediate signs of progress.
At the talks in St Petersburg, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa presented Mr Putin with a 10-point peace initiative from seven African countries and told him it was time for Russia and Ukraine to start negotiations to end the war.
Mr Putin responded with accusations long denied by Ukraine and the West and said it was Kyiv, not Moscow, that was refusing to talk.
In his video message, Mr Zelenskyy said the talks in St Petersburg had demonstrated that only Ukraine's peace plan calling for a withdrawal of all Russian troops was realistic.
"Everything discussed in Russia was about the war, about how to destroy lives further," he said.
War could last 'several more months'
Western analysts and military officials have cautioned that Ukraine's counteroffensive, using Western-supplied advanced weapons, could last a long time.
The European Union said it would speed up arms deliveries to Ukraine in support of the country's counteroffensive, EU industry chief Thierry Breton said on Sunday in an interview with the French daily Le Parisien.
"We are going to step up our efforts to deliver arms and ammunition — this is a war of high intensity in which they play a crucial role," Mr Breton said, citing a pledge to supply 1 million high-calibre weapons over the next 12 months.
"We are preparing for the war to last several more months, or even longer," he added.
The war has destroyed Ukrainian towns and cities, forced millions of people to flee their homes and taken heavy but undisclosed casualties among both armies.
Each side accuses the other of blowing up the Kakhovka power dam in the Kherson region on June 6, flooding vast areas of the war zone.
The United Nations has accused Moscow of failing to allow it to provide assistance to Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine affected by the breach of the dam, which has left thousands homeless.
ABC/wires
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