By Athena Papakosta

Ukrainian armed forces have announced that they have recaptured a village in the east of the country, while Russian armed forces claim to have repelled multiple attacks in the region. For his part, a top adviser to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said six people were wounded after Russian soldiers opened fire on a boat being used to evacuate residents from flooded areas of Ukrainian-controlled territory in the south. At the same time, many civilians report that the Russian authorities are asking residents of the Kherson region for Russian passports before offering them assistance and taking them to safe areas.

The war in Ukraine has now entered its 16th month. Volodymyr Zelensky talks about the start of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, but without giving more details, with the Kremlin insisting that it has repelled all attempts by Kiev. After all, one day before the Russian president himself, Vladimir Putin, had made official statements underlining that the Ukrainian offensive had begun but so far had failed as, as he added, the fighting had been very intense for the past three days and the enemy had not been successful in none of them.

In more detail, yesterday, Sunday, the Ministry of Defense published images of the “unsuccessful”, as it described it, attack by Ukraine with six high-speed drones against the warship of the Russian Black Sea fleet “Pryazovie”, which was carrying out patrols 300 miles south of Sevastopol – at the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet on the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula – to “monitor the situation and ensure safety along the routes of the TurkStream and Blue Stream natural gas pipelines in the southeastern part of the Black Sea.” This is the pipeline, which allows Moscow to bypass Ukraine as a transit route to Europe and transport Russian natural gas to the south of the Old Continent via the Black Sea and Turkey.

However, in the Ukrainian provinces of Zaporizhia and Donetsk, the counterattack by the forces of Kiev continues with infantry and commando forces, but also with overwhelming blows to the positions of Russian troops. For their part, the Russians say they pushed back the Ukrainians, killing 300 soldiers and destroying 4 Leopard tanks.

At the same time, in the northeast and almost halfway along the front line of the 1,000 km front, the Ukrainian armed forces announce that they have recaptured villages such as Blakhodatne, raising the Ukrainian flag on a damaged building. “I am in contact with our commanders in different areas, every day. The (generals) Sirsky, Starnavsky, Moskalyov, Nayev, Zaluzny. All of them are optimistically positive, convey this to Putin,” Zelensky stressed.

In the meantime, the dispute between the founder and head of the mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defense continues.

“The Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation signed an order, which determines the procedure for the organization and service of volunteer corps. The document stipulates that the volunteer detachments before July 1 should sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation,” said Russian Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov without naming the Wagner Group either. For their part, the Media emphasized that this move by Sergei Shoigu is an attempt by the Ministry of Defense of Russia to bring the mercenary groups under its control. However, Prigozhin clarified that his fighters will not sign any contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense.