Fighting in eastern Ukraine has “intensified somewhat” as Ukrainian and Russian forces have clashed in at least three areassaid Deputy Defense Minister of Ukraine Hanna Maliar. Russian forces attacked in Kharkiv in the direction of Kupyansk for two days, she said: “We are on the defensive,” Maliar wrote. “There is fierce fighting.” Maliar also said that the two armies fought each other around the devastated city of Bakhmut, but Ukrainian forces were “gradually advancing” along its southern flank.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised interview that the Ukrainian counter-offensive had failed. “All enemy attempts to breach our defenses … have been unsuccessful since the offensive began. The enemy is not succeeding,” Putin said.
The President also said Russia has “adequate stockpiles” of cluster bombs and Moscow reserves the right to use them if such munitions were used against Russian forces in Ukraine. He added that Russia has not yet used the weapons, although Russia has been accused of using cluster munitions in the deadly attack on Kramatorsk train station last year.
The Russian state has taken over the Russian subsidiary of French yogurt maker Danone and the Carlsberg beer group’s stake in a local brewery, according to a decree signed by Putin. Danone said it was investigating the situation, while Carlsberg said it had not been officially informed of the move.
The United Nations-brokered deal under which Moscow allowed Ukraine to ship its grain across the Black Sea expires late Monday. The Kremlin threatened to pull out of the deal and said over the weekend it still had concerns that commitments to remove “the barriers to Russian food and fertilizer exports still remain unfulfilled”.
Two people were killed on Sunday when Russia launched a series of rocket and grenade attacks on the city and Kharkiv region, beginning in the early hours of the morning and continuing into the evening. Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synyehubov said a young man was killed in Osnovianskyi district and another civilian in a village in the Kupiansk area.
Ukrainian forces fired Grad rockets at the Russian town of Shebekino near the Ukrainian border on Sunday, killing a cyclistsaid the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region. Vyacheslav Gladkov said the rockets hit a market area, damaging a building and two cars.
Only “a few hundred” fighters from the Russian Wagner Group have so far been resettled in Belarus, a Ukrainian official said, leaving the ultimate fate of the combat force unclear. “There are some groups of mercenaries on the territory of Belarus, but we’re not talking about a massive or large-scale operation… we’re talking about a few hundred,” spokesman for Ukraine’s border guards Andrii Demchenko told Ukrainian television.
A Chinese naval flotilla set out on Sunday to join Russian naval and air forces in the Sea of Japan for an exercise aimed at “ensuring the safety of strategic waterways.”, according to the Chinese Defense Ministry. Codenamed “Northern/Interaction-2023,” the exercise marks heightened military cooperation between China and Russia since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, and comes as Beijing continues to rebuff US calls for military communications to resume.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said it would be “completely disastrous” if the US rejected support for Ukraine should Donald Trump be re-elected US President. He also told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday that Ukraine had done an “extraordinary” job in defense but when asked how the final looked like he said the road will be “extremely difficult”.