Ukraine said its forces were managing to push back against Moscow’s troops in fierce fighting in Severodonetsk despite Russia “throwing all its power” into capturing the strategic eastern city. At least 11 civilians were reported killed in the Lugansk region where Severodonetsk is located, the nearby Donetsk region, and in the southern city of Mykolaiv.
Meanwhile, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said on June 3 that his country's military would fend off the Russian invasion in a video marking 100 days of Moscow's all-out assault on its pro-democracy neighbour.
Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said that India is not a conduit for Russian oil sales to other countries, categorically denying international media reports that suggest Indian private refiners are “profiteering” by buying Russian crude at discounted rates and then selling it to other buyers at much higher prices.
Read more news on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis here.
Russia says it destroyed tanks in Kyiv sent by European countries
Russian strikes destroyed tanks and other armoured vehicles on the outskirts of Kyiv that had been provided to Ukraine by European countries, Russia's defence ministry said on Sunday.
The ministry's statement came after the Ukrainian capital was rocked by several explosions early on Sunday. -- Reuters
Putin warns West: Russia will strike harder if longer-range missiles supplied
President Vladimir Putin warned the West that Russia would strike new targets if the United States started supplying Ukraine with longer-range missiles, the TASS news agency reported on June 5. If such missiles are supplied, “we will strike at those targets which we have not yet been hitting,” Mr. Putin was quoted as saying in an interview Rossiya-1 state television channel. - Reuters
Russians have lost ground in Severodonetsk: Regional governor
Russian forces have lost ground in Severodonetsk, a key city in eastern Ukraine that has been the scene of ferocious fighting as Moscow seeks to gain control of Donbas, a regional governor said on June 5. “The Russians were in control of about 70 per cent of the city, but have been forced back over the past two days,” Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday wrote on Telegram. “The city is divided in two. They are afraid to move freely around the city.” - AFP
Ukraine counterattacks contested city of Sievierodonetsk, Britain says
Ukrainian forces have counterattacked in the contested city of Sievierodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, Britain’s defence ministry said on June 5. This move will likely blunt the operational momentum Russian forces previously gained through concentrating combat units and firepower, the ministry said in a tweet.
“The use of proxy infantry forces for urban clearance operations is a Russian tactic previously observed in Syria, where Russia employed V Corps of the Syrian Army to assault urban areas,” it said, adding that the approach likely indicates a desire to limit casualties suffered by regular Russian forces. - Reuters
Several explosions in Kyiv
Several explosions rocked Kyiv early on Sunday, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, the first assault on the Ukrainian capital in weeks as life had slowly begun to resemble normal in the city and its suburbs. “Several explosions in Darnytskyi and Dniprovskyi districts of the capital,” Mr. Klitschko wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “Services are already working on site.”
Reuters witnesses saw smoke in Kyiv that continued long after the explosions. At least one person was hospitalised but no deaths had been reported as of early Sunday, Mr. Klitschko said. - Reuters
Ukraine says Russia using ‘all its power’ to capture eastern city
Ukraine said on June 4 that its forces were managing to push back against Moscow's troops in fierce fighting in Severodonetsk despite Russia "throwing all its power" into capturing the strategic eastern city. At least 11 civilians were reported killed in the Lugansk region where Severodonetsk is located, the nearby Donetsk region, and in the southern city of Mykolaiv.
Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said in an interview posted online that the invading forces had captured most of Severodonetsk, but that Ukraine's forces were pushing them back. "The Russian army, as we understand, is throwing all its power, all its reserves in this direction," said Mr. Gaiday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said "the situation in Severodonetsk, where street fighting continues, remains extremely difficult," as well as in other cities in the Donbas region. - AFP
President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine is losing 60 to 100 soldiers each day in combat
Incendiary ammunition airbursts are seen during a shelling, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in the town of Marinka, in Donetsk region, Ukraine on June 3, 2022. | Photo Credit: Reuters
As soon as they had finished burying a veteran colonel killed by Russian shelling, the cemetery workers readied the next hole. Inevitably, given how quickly death is felling Ukrainian troops on the front lines, the empty grave won’t stay that way for long. Col. Oleksandr Makhachek left behind a widow, Elena, and their daughters Olena and Myroslava-Oleksandra. In the first 100 days of war, his grave was the 40th dug in the military cemetery in Zhytomyr, 90 miles (140 kilometres) west of the capital, Kyiv.
He was killed on May 30 in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine where the fighting is raging. Nearby, the burial notice on the also freshly dug grave of Viacheslav Dvornitskyi says he died May 27. Other graves also showed soldiers killed within days of each other — on May 10, 9th, 7th and 5th. And this is just one cemetery, in just one of Ukraine‘s cities, towns and villages laying soldiers to rest.
Whopper of a problem | The legal tangle keeping Burger King from exiting Russia
For at least a decade, Burger King’s formula for European expansion has relied on a joint venture partnership, including a master franchisee, to open and operate new locations.
But now the fast-food chain has a whopper of a problem in Russia. It hasn’t been able to exit its partnership or close its roughly 800 franchised locations following Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine.
Russia puts more strength behind creeping Ukraine advance
Reinforced Russian troops backed by airstrikes pummeled a portion of eastern Ukraine on June 4, blowing up bridges and shelling apartment buildings as they fought to capture two cities that would put a contested province under Moscow’s control, Ukrainian officials said.
Russian and Ukrainian forces battled street-by-street in Sievierodonetsk and neighbouring Lysychansk, regional governor Serhiy Haidai said. Russian strikes killed four people, including a mother and child, in the nearby village of Hirske, Mr. Haidai said.
The cities are the last major areas of Luhansk province still held by Ukraine. The Russian attacks are central to the Kremlin’s reduced wartime goal of seizing the entire Donbas region, where Moscow-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian forces for eight years and established self-proclaimed republics. - AP
100 speeches in 100 days of war: Zelensky rallies Ukraine
As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tells it, when Russia invaded 100 days ago, no one expected his country to survive. World leaders advised him to flee.
“But they didn’t know us,” he said in a late-night video address in April when the war hit its 50th day. “And they didn’t know how brave Ukrainians are, how much we value freedom.” He could have been speaking about himself. No one knew how a 44-year-old man who had catapulted himself from the world of entertainment into the presidency would respond to an invasion by Russia’s giant army.
In eastern Ukraine, keeping the lights on is a dangerous job
As the fighting in eastern Ukraine inches forward, Russian attacks are knocking out power, water and gas to entire towns and cities — and the utility crews sent to repair the smashed transmission lines and pipes are finding themselves in the middle of the shelling.
Crews sometimes arrive at a location only to be forced to retreat because of the fighting, officials say. Some villages are impossible to reach.
