The Ukrainian military has reported heavy fighting in Ukraine’s east as Russian forces attempt to gain full control of the partially occupied Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
“The adversary continues to focus its main efforts on attempts to fully occupy the Luhansk and Donetsk regions,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on June 11. “Heavy fighting continues.”
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The Russian forces’ focus on the Luhansk and Donetsk regions comes as the Ukrainian military conducts a major counteroffensive aimed at retaking Ukrainian territory occupied by Moscow.
On June 10, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy acknowledged that the long-expected counteroffensive had begun.
“Counteroffensive and defensive actions are taking place in Ukraine, but I will not say in detail what stage they are at,” Zelenskiy said.
During a press conference in Kyiv with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Zelenskiy was asked about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim earlier in the day that the counteroffensive had begun but that the Ukrainian forces had made no progress.
Zelenskiy told reporters to pass on to Putin that Ukraine’s generals were “all in a positive mood.”
Later on June 10, in his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said that the fighting was heaviest on the eastern and southern fronts.
“Thank you to all those who hold their positions and those who advance,” he said.
On June 11, the Ukrainian military issued updated casualty figures that said that more than 980 Russian soldiers had been killed or wounded in fighting over the previous 24 hours.
The counteroffensive has been complicated by the bursting on June 6 of the Russian-controlled Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River. Kyiv has accused Moscow of mining the dam and deliberately causing its destruction.
Russia, which gained control of the dam shortly after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has steadfastly rejected accusations it was behind the incident in the southern Kherson region.
On June 11, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said that Russian forces blew up the dam to limit the Ukrainian counteroffensive and to make Kyiv divert its forces to deal with the resulting ecological and humanitarian crisis.
“The explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station was apparently carried out with the intention of preventing the Ukrainian Defense Forces from launching an offensive in the Kherson sector,” Malyar wrote on Telegram.
Malyar added that the destruction of the dam was also intended to allow Russian reserves in the region to be deployed to reinforce the areas of Zaporizhzhya and Bakhmut.
While information on the counteroffensive is limited, there have been reports of losses on both sides.
A Ukrainian military spokesman said on June 10 that Ukrainian forces had advanced more than a kilometer at a number of points along the front line near Bakhmut, a city in the Donetsk region that Russian and Ukrainian forces fought over for months before Russia’s private Wagner mercenary group gained control of most of the city in May.
On June 11, the Ukrainian Land Forces claimed that one of its brigades had liberated the village of Blahodatne, located between Mariupol and Donetsk in the Donetsk region. It published a video on Facebook showing Ukrainian soldiers planting a Ukrainian flag in the window of a damaged building in the village.
“The invaders resisted to the last, but could not withstand the onslaught of unrestrained wolverines!” the Land Forces wrote.
RFE/RL was unable to independently verify the claim.
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War has said that the Ukrainian armed forces appear to have also made some gains in their offensive in the Zaporizhzhya region in the south.
The Russian military has said it successfully repelled attacks in both areas. The Russian Defense Ministry has released video footage in recent days showing what it said were numerous strikes on Ukrainian armored vehicles and tanks, including German Leopard 2 tanks and U.S. Bradley fighting vehicles.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu awarded medals on June 11 to soldiers it said had destroyed the foreign weaponry donated to Kyiv.
A UN official warned on June 10 of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of the dam breach and resulting flooding.
UN Undersecretary-General Martin Griffiths told AP that an “extraordinary” 700,000 people are in need of drinking water and said that the crisis will likely lead to lower grain exports, higher food prices around the world, and less to eat for millions in need. “The truth is this is only the beginning of seeing the consequences of this act,” Griffiths said.
On June 11, the British Defense Ministry said in an intelligence assessment that the destruction of the dam “has almost certainly severely disrupted” the primary source of fresh water to Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.
Water at the dam’s reservoir had likely dropped below the inlet that feeds water to the canal delivering water to the peninsula, according to the assessment. Water is expected to stop flowing in the canal as a result, reducing the availability of fresh water in the south of the Kherson region and in northern Crimea.
The operators of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station reported on June 11 that water levels in the dam’s reservoir have dropped 9.35 meters since the dam burst last week.
On June 10, Ukraine’s nuclear energy agency put the last operating reactor at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which is cooled by water from the reservoir, into “cold shutdown” as a safety precaution.
The British Defense Ministry said that it expected the Russian authorities to meet civilians’ water needs by using reservoirs, water rationing, drilling new wells, and bottled water.
It said that communities on both sides of the Dnieper face a sanitation crisis, limited access to safe water, and an increased risk of water-borne diseases.
Rescue efforts continued on June 11, with the Ukrainian Interior Ministry saying that 35 people, including seven children, remain unaccounted for in the Kherson region. Five people in Kherson and one person in the region of Mykolayiv have died as a result of the floods.
The Ukrainian authorities said that 32 towns and villages on the west bank of the Dnieper controlled by Ukrainian forces are still under water.
Evacuation efforts were also reported on the eastern bank of the river, which is more vulnerable to flooding.
Each side has accused the other of shelling civilians during the rescue efforts.
With reporting by RFE/RL’s Russian Service, Current Time, Reuters, AP, and dpa.
TORONTO – Strength in the base metal and technology sectors helped Canada’s main stock index gain almost 100 points on Friday, while U.S. stock markets also climbed higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 93.51 points at 23,568.65.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 297.01 points at 41,393.78. The S&P 500 index was up 30.26 points at 5,626.02, while the Nasdaq composite was up 114.30 points at 17,683.98.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.61 cents US compared with 73.58 cents US on Thursday.
The October crude oil contract was down 32 cents at US$68.65 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was down five cents at US$2.31 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$30.10 at US$2,610.70 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents US$4.24 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says wholesale sales, excluding petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons and excluding oilseed and grain, rose 0.4 per cent to $82.7 billion in July.
The increase came as sales in the miscellaneous subsector gained three per cent to reach $10.5 billion in July, helped by strength in the agriculture supplies industry group, which rose 9.2 per cent.
The food, beverage and tobacco subsector added 1.7 per cent to total $15 billion in July.
The personal and household goods subsector fell 2.5 per cent to $12.1 billion.
In volume terms, overall wholesale sales rose 0.5 per cent in July.
Statistics Canada started including oilseed and grain as well as the petroleum and petroleum products subsector as part of wholesale trade last year, but is excluding the data from monthly analysis until there is enough historical data.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 150 points in late-morning trading, helped by strength in the base metal and energy sectors, while U.S. stock markets were mixed.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 172.18 points at 23,383.35.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 34.99 points at 40,826.72. The S&P 500 index was up 10.56 points at 5,564.69, while the Nasdaq composite was up 74.84 points at 17,470.37.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.55 cents US compared with 73.59 cents US on Wednesday.
The October crude oil contract was up $2.00 at US$69.31 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up five cents at US$2.32 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$40.00 at US$2,582.40 an ounce and the December copper contract was up six cents at US$4.20 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
