Shaun
Ukrainian forces were gradually pushing Russian forces out of the border Sumy region, where Moscow was able to establish a foothold in recent weeks, president Volodymyr Zelensky said. “Our units in Sumy region are gradually pushing back the occupiers,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly video address. “I thank you! Thanks to every soldier, sergeant and officer for this result.”
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said there had been a concentration of Russian men and equipment in the Sumy region following months of Ukrainian operations across the border in Kursk. He advised caution to establish details of the situation on the ground. Russian forces have been moving into Sumy region since April when Vladimir Putin called for the creation of a buffer zone following the eviction of Ukrainian troops from the Kursk region.
Ukraine, meanwhile, claimed that Russia had lost more than one million troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its invasion in February 2022.
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Hungary’s president says he will not be intimidated by Ukraine
Hungary’s president Victor Orban, who is seen as the closest European leader to Putin, has claimed that Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has threatened Hungary.
In a film posted to social media platform X on Saturday, Mr Orban said: “When a Ukrainian tells you ‘I’m not telling this to threaten you, I don’t want to threaten you’, It’s perfectly clear that you are being threatened.
“The president of Ukraine has threatened Hungary.”
He added that Hungary would “not behave like the western Europeans, who swoon over every word the Ukrainian president says”. Mr Orban said that Mr Zelensky was “talking down” to Hungary.
Mr Orban has attempted to stymie EU support for Ukraine and has opposed sanctions on Russia. Ukraine and Hungary’s relationship was brought to a new low last month when a row erupted over the arrest of two Ukrainians accused of spying for Hungary.
Both countries then expelled diplomats and Hungary arrested a Ukrainian citizen and accused him of spying also. Russia handed back the bodies of 1,200 Ukrainian soldiers on Friday but did not receive any in exchange, state news agency TASS said, citing an unidentified source.
Ukraine confirmed earlier on Friday that it had received the 1,200 bodies from Russia as part of agreements reached between the two sides to exchange both prisoners of war and soldiers killed in action.
A Russian aircraft was intercepted over the Baltic Sea by two British fighter jets on Friday, the Polish armed forces have said.
The Russian II-20 reconnaissance aircraft flew two kilometres inside Polish airspace, the ministry said.
“This is another case of provocative testing of the readiness of Nato countries’ systems,” the Polish Armed Forces Operational Command wrote on social media platform X.
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Western military alliance ramped up its presence along its eastern flank, sending more fighter jets there and setting up ground-based air defences.
The army said a pair of British fighters, stationed in Poland as part of Nato’s so-called Air Policing effort, were scrambled before the Polish border was breached. The planes intercepted and identified the plane, and the incident is being analysed by the appropriate Nato commands, the army said.
Russian forces are likely attempting to level the frontlines in the Novopavlivka and Kurakhove directions to advance into Dnipropetrovsk oblast where Moscow’s offensive has picked pace in the recent days, a Washington-based think tank said.
“Russian forces first crossed the Donetsk-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast border northwest of Horikhove (northwest of Ukrainka and southeast of Novopavlivka) as of 9 June and will likely seek to secure further advances to level the current salients near Horikhove and Novoukrainka,” the Institute for the Study of War said.
It added that a Kremlin-affiliated Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces “also seek to even out the frontline near Udachne (northeast of Novopavlivka along the T-0406 Pokrovsk-Mekhova highway) and Muravka (southeast of Udachne and north of Horikhove)”.
Ukrainian Southern Defence Forces spokesperson Colonel Vyacheslav Voloshyn also reported on Wednesday that Russian forces are using motorcycles in assaults to try to advance quickly and make it difficult for Ukraine to reinforce the area.
“Kremlin officials and Russian commentators have framed Russian efforts to advance into Dnipropetrovsk Oblast as efforts to create a ”buffer zone,” indicating that Russia continues to have wider territorial ambitions in Ukraine beyond the areas it has illegally annexed,” the ISW said.
