- Peace efforts by African leaders are having no effect
- An official deployed by Russia says the Ukrainian retook the village
- Ukraine claims it blew up a large Russian ammunition dump
- Rare statements by Putin illustrate the decisive turning point in the war
June 18 (Portal) – Russia on Sunday reported fierce fighting at three stretches of the frontline in Ukraine, a day after it hosted an African peacekeeping mission that failed to arouse enthusiasm in either Moscow or Kyiv.
A Russian-installed official said Ukraine had recaptured Piatykhatky, a village in the southern Zaporizhia region, and was entrenching itself there while coming under fire from Russian artillery.
“The enemy’s ‘wave’ offensives showed results, despite huge losses,” official Vladimir Rogov told the news app Telegram.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not mention Piatykhatky in its daily update, in which it said its forces repelled Ukrainian attacks in three sectors of the 1,000 km (600 miles) front line. A separate statement from Russia’s Vostok Group said Ukraine had failed to meet the agreement.
Portal could not independently verify the battlefield reports.
There was no comment from Ukraine, which last week said it had recaptured another nearby settlement, Lobkove, and a number of villages further east in the Donetsk region as the start of its long-awaited counteroffensive.
Ukrainian officials have imposed an information blackout to improve operational security but say Russia has suffered far greater casualties than Ukraine in its new attack.
A regional official said Ukrainian forces destroyed a large Russian ammunition depot in the occupied Kherson region. This is part of a week-long attempt by Kiev to destroy Russian supply lines.
According to British Defense Intelligence, the fierce fighting of the past few days has been concentrated in Zaporizhia, western Donetsk and the area around Bakhmut, which was captured by Russian mercenaries last month after the longest battle of the war.
“In all of these areas, Ukraine continues to engage in offensive operations and has made small strides,” it said on Twitter.
Russian defense operations have been “relatively effective in the south,” with both sides suffering heavy casualties, the assessment said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who rarely comments on the course of the war, delivered two unusually detailed interventions last week, in which he ridiculed Ukraine’s push and said Kiev’s armed forces “didn’t stand a chance” despite being newly equipped with Western tanks .
His remarks appeared intended to reassure Russia at a crucial time, nearly 16 months into the conflict, as Ukraine seeks to break the months-long deadlock and retake the 18% of its territory still under Russian control.
PEACE MISSION
At talks in St. Petersburg on Saturday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa handed Putin a 10-point peace initiative from seven African countries and told him it was time for Russia and Ukraine to start talks to end the war.
Putin responded by rattling off a series of well-known allegations denied by Ukraine and the West, saying it was Kiev, not Moscow, that refused to talk. He thanked Ramaphosa for his “noble mission”.
Russian news agencies quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that Putin had shown interest in the plan but said it was “difficult to implement”.
In Kiev the day before, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had told the African delegation – the first since the war began to hold separate face-to-face talks with both leaders on their peace initiative – that allowing negotiations would now “freeze the war” and that suffering of the Ukrainian people.
The deep rift between the two sides was made even clearer when Putin used a flagship business forum on Friday to personally smear Zelenskyy and reiterate the goals of “demilitarizing” and “denazifying” Ukraine, which he laid out on the first day of the war and the Kiev and the West reject this as a false pretext for an invasion.
However, Ramaphosa tried to put the trip to Ukraine and Russia in a positive light, tweeting Sunday that “the Africa Peace Initiative has made an impact and its ultimate success will be measured by its goal, which is to end war.” to stop”.
He said the Africans would continue to speak to Putin and Zelenskyy and update UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on their efforts so far.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Sunday no immediate results were expected. “But it’s a start that we hope will bear fruit in the end.”
MONTHS OF DESTRUCTION
The war has devastated Ukrainian cities, forced millions to flee, caused heavy but undisclosed casualties in both armies and killed thousands of Ukrainian civilians.
Each side accused the other of blowing up a huge Ukrainian dam on June 6 and flooding large parts of the war zone.
In the Russian-controlled town of Hola Prystan on Saturday, Portal filmed volunteers pumping water from flooded homes and distributing bread and drinking water.
“Not a single person in the world will be punished for this terrible catastrophe for this torture that we are going through,” said Tamara, a 78-year-old retired nurse.
“That’s what frustrates me. That nobody gets punished for it. And I would like at least one person to be tried and punished for everything. For the whole world to see.”
Additional reporting by Dan Peleschuk, Tom Balmforth and Wendell Roelf. Writing from Mark Trevelyan in London. Edited by Frances Kerry and David Evans
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Mark Trevelian