Sunday, Jun. 11, brought breakthrough information from the southern section of the front. The Ukrainian army officially announced the liberation of the localities of Blahodatne, Neskuchne and Makarivka, and shortly afterwards also of Storozheve and Novodarivka.

This was the result of an attack on the Vremivka salient, on the border of the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions. In response to these advances, the Russians blew up another, smaller dam on the Mokri Yaly River in an attempt to flood the areas ahead of the attacking units and slow their movement. At the same time, Ukrainian partisans achieved success behind enemy lines, blowing up the railway bridge at Yakymivka, which seriously disrupted logistics between Crimea and the Zaporizhzhia front. On the eastern front, the Ukrainians continued their advance towards the Berkhivka reservoir near Bakhmut, while the Russian field hospitals in the Rostov region became overcrowded due to the huge number of wounded transported from the battle lines. 

Deputy Minister Hanna Malar confirmed that during the first week of the active phase of the counteroffensive, a total of seven localities were liberated, with approximately 90 sqkm of territory retaken. The heaviest clashes moved to the area of Lobkove and Levadne. The Russians, desperately defending their positions, began to use TOS-1A thermobaric systems on a massive scale. In response to equipment losses sustained by Ukraine (estimated by the Oryx Group at approximately 15% of the delivered Bradley vehicles), the United States announced an immediate rescue package including additional Stryker and Bradley IFVs. Administrative terror intensified in the occupied territories. In Melitopol, the Russians began blackmailing parents of high school graduates, making the issuance of school certificates conditional on the children accepting Russian passports. 

Russia, ignoring the international community's condemnation, announced on Jun. 15 its plans to hold illegal local elections in the occupied territories in September, and a show trial of 22 Azovstal defenders began in Rostov. In order to seal the borders against guerilla raids, the Kremlin decided to send the Chechen "Zapad-Akhmat" battalion to the Belgorod region.

On Jun. 16, a delegation of leaders of African countries (including South Africa, Senegal and Zambia) arrived in Kyiv on a peace mission. During their visit, Russia carried out a massive missile attack on the capital, using, among other things, six Kinzhal hypersonic missiles. Although Ukrainian anti-aircraft defences shot down all the missiles, the guests from Africa had to seek shelter in bunkers. 

According to British intelligence, Russian losses during this period reached the highest level since the bloodiest fighting for Bakhmut in March. The Ukrainians retook another 24 sqkm in the Donetsk region, forcing the Russians to launch desperate counterattacks near Vuhledar. At the same time, President Putin confirmed the deployment of the first batch of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, which was perceived as an attempt to intimidate the West and stop support for the counteroffensive. Behind enemy lines, in the Bryansk region, an attempted drone attack on the strategic Druzhba pipeline took place, demonstrating Ukraine's growing ability to strike targets deep within Russian territory.

Ukrainian forces achieved an important success in the western part of the Zaporizhzhia region, liberating the village of Pyatykhatky on Jun. 18. The locality was a key point on the road to Vasylivka and further towards Melitopol. In the face of these events, the British Ministry of Defence noticed that Russia had begun to transfer thousands of soldiers from the lower Dnieper (weakened by the flood) to the endangered sections of the Zaporizhzhia front.

To relieve the southern front, the Russian army intensified attacks in the Lyman and Kupiansk directions, trying to seize the initiative in the north. The Ukrainians had to repel up to 40 attacks a day there, while continuing their own attack near Robotyn. An important reinforcement of the Ukrainian sky was Emmanuel Macron's confirmation that the SAMP/T anti-missile system (the Italian-French equivalent of Patriot) was already in Ukraine and was actively protecting strategic facilities. 

The second half of June 2023 was marked by extremely bloody and arduous struggles, in which every recovered meter of land was paid for with enormous effort. President Volodymyr Zelensky openly admitted that the pace of the counteroffensive was slower than expected, which was primarily due to the enormous scale of landmining, covering an area of two hundred thousand square kilometres. Despite these difficulties, the Ukrainian command consistently implemented the plan to crush the Russian defence in several directions simultaneously, placing particular emphasis on the Melitopol, Berdyansk and Laman sectors. General Oleksandr Syrsky emphasized that Bakhmut remained a priority for the Russians, which forced them to constantly redeploy new units to the area, including elite airborne assault units.

Illustrative photo/AI generated