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.
OTTAWA – Canada’s unemployment rate held steady at 6.5 per cent last month as hiring remained weak across the economy.
Statistics Canada’s labour force survey on Friday said employment rose by a modest 15,000 jobs in October.
Business, building and support services saw the largest gain in employment.
Meanwhile, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing experienced the largest decline.
Many economists see weakness in the job market continuing in the short term, before the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts spark a rebound in economic growth next year.
Despite ongoing softness in the labour market, however, strong wage growth has raged on in Canada. Average hourly wages in October grew 4.9 per cent from a year ago, reaching $35.76.
Friday’s report also shed some light on the financial health of households.
According to the agency, 28.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 or older were living in a household that had difficulty meeting financial needs – like food and housing – in the previous four weeks.
That was down from 33.1 per cent in October 2023 and 35.5 per cent in October 2022, but still above the 20.4 per cent figure recorded in October 2020.
People living in a rented home were more likely to report difficulty meeting financial needs, with nearly four in 10 reporting that was the case.
That compares with just under a quarter of those living in an owned home by a household member.
Immigrants were also more likely to report facing financial strain last month, with about four out of 10 immigrants who landed in the last year doing so.
That compares with about three in 10 more established immigrants and one in four of people born in Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information says health-care spending in Canada is projected to reach a new high in 2024.
The annual report released Thursday says total health spending is expected to hit $372 billion, or $9,054 per Canadian.
CIHI’s national analysis predicts expenditures will rise by 5.7 per cent in 2024, compared to 4.5 per cent in 2023 and 1.7 per cent in 2022.
This year’s health spending is estimated to represent 12.4 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. Excluding two years of the pandemic, it would be the highest ratio in the country’s history.
While it’s not unusual for health expenditures to outpace economic growth, the report says this could be the case for the next several years due to Canada’s growing population and its aging demographic.
Canada’s per capita spending on health care in 2022 was among the highest in the world, but still less than countries such as the United States and Sweden.
The report notes that the Canadian dental and pharmacare plans could push health-care spending even further as more people who previously couldn’t afford these services start using them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
As Canadians wake up to news that Donald Trump will return to the White House, the president-elect’s protectionist stance is casting a spotlight on what effect his second term will have on Canada-U.S. economic ties.
Some Canadian business leaders have expressed worry over Trump’s promise to introduce a universal 10 per cent tariff on all American imports.
A Canadian Chamber of Commerce report released last month suggested those tariffs would shrink the Canadian economy, resulting in around $30 billion per year in economic costs.
More than 77 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S.
Canada’s manufacturing sector faces the biggest risk should Trump push forward on imposing broad tariffs, said Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters president and CEO Dennis Darby. He said the sector is the “most trade-exposed” within Canada.
“It’s in the U.S.’s best interest, it’s in our best interest, but most importantly for consumers across North America, that we’re able to trade goods, materials, ingredients, as we have under the trade agreements,” Darby said in an interview.
“It’s a more complex or complicated outcome than it would have been with the Democrats, but we’ve had to deal with this before and we’re going to do our best to deal with it again.”
American economists have also warned Trump’s plan could cause inflation and possibly a recession, which could have ripple effects in Canada.
It’s consumers who will ultimately feel the burden of any inflationary effect caused by broad tariffs, said Darby.
“A tariff tends to raise costs, and it ultimately raises prices, so that’s something that we have to be prepared for,” he said.
“It could tilt production mandates. A tariff makes goods more expensive, but on the same token, it also will make inputs for the U.S. more expensive.”
A report last month by TD economist Marc Ercolao said research shows a full-scale implementation of Trump’s tariff plan could lead to a near-five per cent reduction in Canadian export volumes to the U.S. by early-2027, relative to current baseline forecasts.
Retaliation by Canada would also increase costs for domestic producers, and push import volumes lower in the process.
“Slowing import activity mitigates some of the negative net trade impact on total GDP enough to avoid a technical recession, but still produces a period of extended stagnation through 2025 and 2026,” Ercolao said.
Since the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement came into effect in 2020, trade between Canada and the U.S. has surged by 46 per cent, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
With that deal is up for review in 2026, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Candace Laing said the Canadian government “must collaborate effectively with the Trump administration to preserve and strengthen our bilateral economic partnership.”
“With an impressive $3.6 billion in daily trade, Canada and the United States are each other’s closest international partners. The secure and efficient flow of goods and people across our border … remains essential for the economies of both countries,” she said in a statement.
“By resisting tariffs and trade barriers that will only raise prices and hurt consumers in both countries, Canada and the United States can strengthen resilient cross-border supply chains that enhance our shared economic security.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
