News from Ukraine on June 14, 2023: counteroffensive, slow progress and Putin again

This is the most interesting news from Ukraine on June 14, 2023

Ukraine is taking significant casualties and making slow progress towards the Russian main line of defence but its forces recaptured 100 square kilometres and has liberated several settlements in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine. Later Wednesday, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister said there are “extremely fierce” battles.

Ukrainian officials said the counteroffensive was still in its early days and involved a form of warfare not seen in decades as Ukraine forces are forced to build single lanes of armoured vehicles through mines heading to main Russian defences that in some cases may be still as far as 20km away.

The officials also suggested there is likely to be “grinding costly warfare likely for many months to come. This is incredibly difficult. They are going against a well-prepared line that the Russians have had months to prepare.

At the same time russian president Vladimir Putin claimed Ukraine’s counteroffensive is failing saying that Kyiv had lost as many as 120 armoured vehicles.

“This is a large-scale counteroffensive, using reserves that were trained for this purpose, it has been underway since the 4th of June and is still underway, right now,” Putin said at a meeting with war correspondents.

But Ministry of Defence of Ukraine denied it had lost as many armoured vehicles claiming that this is no more than fake news.