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Russia knew Ukraine’s counteroffensive plans before they began in 2023, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky said in frank admissions that came alongside a rare discussion of military casualties in the two-year war. Ukraine’s top-secret war plan was leaked to Russia last year, presumably a contributing factor to what has been broadly accepted as a failed Spring counteroffensive in 2023, but this year Ukraine is creating decoy plans to keep the Kremlin guessing, President Zelensky has said. Speaking at an event on Sunday commemorating the second anniversary of the relaunch of the now ten-year-old invasion and occupation of Ukraine by Russia, Zelensky revealed...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave a basically upbeat assessment of Ukraine’s long-awaited “counteroffensive” against invading Russian forces but conceded “nobody knows” if there will be a major breakthrough this year in an interview with CNN on Tuesday. Zelensky added that he thinks “we will have more success” in the coming year, following a slower-than-expected start for the big counteroffensive. As in several other recent interviews, he disputed criticism that Ukraine’s push has deteriorated into a stalemate, pointing to gains made by his forces in the east of the country.

President Joe Biden and his leaders at the Pentagon are doubling down on their support of Ukraine despite a failing military counteroffensive, amid a push to get Congress to approve $24 billion more for the war. Biden argued in front of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday that if Ukraine was not safe, no nation would be safe, and that investment in Ukraine’s future was an investment in the future of any country that seeks a rules-based world order.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has thanked the soldiers who took part in the liberation of Klishchiivka in Donetsk Oblast, as well as everyone who protects the Ukrainian sky and fights on the front lines. "I would like to express gratitude today. To everyone who defends the sky of our country. Our pilots and engineers of the Air Force, warriors of mobile fire groups, all our anti-aircraft gunners. Thank you for constantly increasing the number of downed Russian missiles and drones, and thus the number of our people and infrastructure saved. Thank you, warriors! And to everyone who is now on the...

Ukraine reported on Monday its troops had recaptured more territory on the eastern front and advanced in the south in its military counteroffensive against Russian forces. Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said Kyiv's forces had retaken two square km (0.77 square mile) of land in the past week around the shattered eastern city of Bakhmut, which was captured by Russian troops in May after months of fighting. Ukraine reported on Monday its troops had recaptured more territory on the eastern front and advanced in the south in its military counteroffensive against Russian forces. Overall, Ukraine regained more than 260 square...

Ukraine said on Friday it had recaptured the devastated eastern village of Andriivka, setting the stage for further advances on the southern flank of Bakhmut, the city that fell into Russian hands in May after months of heavy fighting. Kyiv's troops were securing their foothold in the area, while Russian forces suffered significant casualties and lost equipment, the Ukrainian General Staff said in a morning report. There was no immediate comment from Russia. "In the course of assault operations, they seized Andriivka in Donetsk region," the General Staff said. The village of Andriivka lies south of Bakhmut, the site of...

Ukraine likely only has around 30 days left in order to make significant gains in its counteroffensive, the highest-ranking military officer in the United States Armed Forces has warned. Speaking to Britain’s public broadcaster, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley predicted that the looming winter would not only freeze the ground but also the current lines in the war between Russia and Ukraine, and therefore would mean that if Zelensky’s government wishes to recapture occupied territory from Moscow, his forces would need to do so in the next four weeks.

Ukraine said on Monday its troops had regained more territory on the eastern and southern fronts in the past week of its counteroffensive against Russian forces. Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said in televised comments that Ukraine had retaken nearly 2 square km (0.77 square mile) of land around the eastern city of Bakhmut, captured by Russia in May after months of fighting. She later added on the Telegram messaging app that the Ukrainian army had in the past week also recaptured 4.8 square km in the southern Tavria sector. In her televised comments, Maliar said Ukrainian forces had captured...

Ukraine needs “powerful and long-range weapons” — fighter jets, in other words — because Russia’s air superiority over the battlefield has allowed them to “stop our counteroffensive”, President Zelensky said. Russia is denying air superiority to Ukraine and using that to “stop” the counteroffensive, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday, the latest in a line of remarks addressing the difficulty the Western-armed Ukrainian army has had this year turning back the tide of the Russian occupation. Speaking at a conference in Kyiv on Friday, Zelensky said Ukraine needed “powerful and long-range” because: “We are not in the sky and...

Ukrainian forces have made “notable progress” in their counteroffensive over the last 72 hours, notching wins against the second line of Russian defenders, a White House spokesman, John F. Kirby, said at a news conference on Friday. The United States, Mr. Kirby said, will not discuss Ukraine’s war plans, or how its forces would exploit their gains. But, he added, the U.S. expects Ukraine to continue to push further south, requiring “tough fighting ahead.” Ukraine’s military celebrated a tactical victory earlier this week when its forces retook the southern village of Robotyne. Days later, Ukrainian assault units moved east toward...

Ukraine said on Tuesday its troops had entered the strategic southeastern village of Robotyne, a potentially significant advance in its counteroffensive against Russian forces. Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said on the Telegram messaging app that Ukrainian soldiers were organising the evacuation of civilians after entering Robotyne but were still coming under fire from Russian forces. "Our soldiers in the village of Robotyne," General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of Ukrainian forces in the south, wrote on Telegram under a picture of a soldier in a tank. Robotyne is 10 km (six miles) south of the frontline town of Orikhiv in the...

After months of inching through minefields, villages and open steppes in grueling combat, Ukrainian forces are making somewhat bigger advances along two major lines of attack, according to analysts, Ukrainian officials and Russian military bloggers. Although Ukraine has not advanced more than 10 to 12 miles on either vector of attack, its gains are important in that it is compelling Moscow to divert forces from other parts of the front line, military analysts say. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, called the advances “tactically significant,” saying Moscow’s redeployment would most “likely further weaken Russian defensive...

Ukrainian troops admitted that the Russians have put up a tougher fight than expected as they continue pushing into enemy-controlled territory. Troops at the vanguard of Ukraine’s long-planned counteroffensive in the southeast region of the country said that a fierce battle last week revealed that the Russian troops are better prepared than originally anticipated. “The Russians were waiting for us,” a 29-year-old soldier using the call-sign Bulat told Reuters in the Southern Donetsk Province. “They fired anti-tank weapons and grenade launchers at us. My vehicle drove over an anti-tank mine, but everything was ok, the vehicle took the hit, and...

Ukrainian forces have recaptured nearly 15 square km (5.8 square miles) of land from Russian troops in the east and south over the past week during their counteroffensive, a senior defence official said on Monday. Kyiv's forces have now retaken 204.7 sq km in the south since they launched a major push against Russian forces early last month, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said on the Telegram messaging app. Ukrainian officials have reported slow, steady progress in the counteroffensive, retaking a string of villages and advancing on the flanks of the eastern city of Bakhmut, which Russian forces captured in...

Ukraine’s top general has blamed the slow progress of the country’s counteroffensive against Russia on a supposed lack of Western-supplied weaponry and fighter jets. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s military commander-in-chief, aired his frustrations with the growing concern in Western capitals and media that his forces are not making the expected gains against the heavily entrenched Russian forces.

Ukraine's partners expect rapid success in the counteroffensive before the July NATO summit in Vilnius, but every meter of liberated territory comes at a high cost, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview with Spanish media, as reported by broadcaster RTVE on June 30."We must show results before the (NATO) summit (on July 11-12), but every meter comes at a cost of lives," said Zelenskyy.The president revealed that the plans for Ukraine's counteroffensive have been slowed down in recent months due to heavy rains. He called on partners to continue supporting Ukraine with weapons. Zelenskyy noted that during the...

Ukraine has “de-occupied” 130 square kilometres (50 square miles) of national territory in its southern region since the start of the counter-offensive, real progress but a statement that perhaps underlines recent admissions that things are not moving as quickly as initially hoped. Kyiv’s deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar put the previous week’s fighting into context in a statement published early Monday morning, saying in Ukraine’s military eastern region of operations the Russian lines had been pushed back one-to-two kilometres (up to a mile-and-a-quarter) in battles pushing eastwards towards Donetsk and Bakhmut. Ukrainian soldiers are now entrenched at the new forward...

Ukraine's long-awaited attempt to take back the territories in the east and south of the country, occupied by Russia for the past 18 months, is now in full swing. A key figure in planning and executing this operation is Gen Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine's 49-year-old commander-in-chief. Little known until recently, his popularity now rivals that of President Volodymyr Zelensky. Gen Zaluzhny, or "our Valera" as friends and old classmates like to call him, was appointed commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian military in July 2021. (snip) Within seven months he was leading Ukraine's defence against full-scale invasion. (snip) The commander-in-chief became a national...

The long-discussed Ukrainian spring counteroffensive is underway, Volodymyr Zelensky has confirmed, with the country reporting 25 battles fought in the past 24 hours and a handful of villages reclaimed. Ukraine’s own reporting of its progress in the counteroffensive against Russia’s occupation of the southeast of their country claims a clutch of villages and positions taken encircling Donetsk on Monday morning. The gains would be the first settlements reported taken in the counteroffensive so far, which was officially declared by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday but appears to have been underway to varying degrees since early last week.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that counteroffensive and defensive actions were underway against Russian forces, asserting that his top commanders were in a “positive” mindset as their troops engaged in intense fighting along the front line. The Ukrainian leader, at a Kyiv news conference alongside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, responded to a question about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comment a day earlier that Ukraine’s counteroffensive had started – and Ukrainian forces were taking “significant losses.