Russia’s forces face shortage of tanks as Kyiv’s troops advance – Ukraine latest

Russia’s forces are suffering a shortage of tanks, the nations’s defence minister has admitted, during a visit a military factory in western Siberia. Sergei Shoigu has called for more tanks to be manufactured “to meet the needs of Russian forces” in Ukraine, with Kyiv having launched a counteroffensive involving Western tanks and weapons.

Mr Shoigu said there was a need “to maintain the increased production of tanks” and better security features in armored vehicles, the Defense Ministry said in a statement about the visit.

Ukraine has celebrated the first territorial gains of its long-trailed counteroffensive against the invading Russian forces.

Unverified photographs and video appearing on Sunday and on Monday morning showed Ukrainian soldiers holding their country’s blue and yellow flag aloft in triumph in the eastern villages of Storozheve, Blahodatne, Neskuchne and Makarivka in Donetsk, suggesting they had been recaptured from occupying enemy troops.

Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar posted one of the photos from Storozheve and thanked the 35th Separate Brigade of Marines for liberating it.

She has since said that Ukraine has won back three more villages in Zaporizhzhia – Lobkove, Levadne and Novodarivk – and advanced 250 metres near Bakhmut, 200 metres on the Toretsk front in east Ukraine and at least 500 metres closer to the port city of Berdyansk.

Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synehubov revised the death toll from a Russian missile strike on a small Ukrainian village in the east to two people on Saturday.

Synehubov initially said on the Telegram messaging app that four people were killed as a Russian anti-tank guided missile hit a car driving towards the village of Huriyv Kozachok which is near the border with Russia.

Later he gave provided an update, saying that two volunteers – a 42-year-old man and a 53-year-old woman were killed.

Ukraine liberated many villages and towns in the Kharkiv region last autumn but since then the Russian military has frequently shelled the area, destroying critical infrastructure and injuring and killing residents.

Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine has been raging for one year now as the conflict continues to record devastating casualties and force the mass displacement of millions of blameless Ukrainians.

Vladimir Putin began the war by claiming Russia’s neighbour needed to be “demilitarised and de-Nazified”, a baseless pretext on which to launch a landgrab against an independent state that happens to have a Jewish president in Volodymyr Zelensky.

Ukraine has fought back courageously against Mr Putin’s warped bid to restore territory lost to Moscow with the collapse of the Soviet Union and has continued to defy the odds by defending itself against Russian onslaughts with the help of Western military aid.

Thomas Kingsley and Joe Sommerlad report:

Watch the dramatic moment Ukrainian civilians are rescued from flood-affected areas of of the Russian-occupied eastern bank.

Rescue boats shuttling volunteers and officials darted across from Ukrainian-held areas on the west bank to evacuate desperate civilians stuck on rooftops.

Drone footage obtained by AP shows severe flooding from the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam on 6 June, along the lower Dnieper River in Kherson.

Russia and Ukraine both accuse each other of destroying the dam.

The Jewish Confederation of Ukraine has responded to Vladimir Putin’s comment that Volodymyr Zelensky is “not Jewish”, describing the Ukrainian President as a “hero”.

“Zelensky is a hero not only of the Jewish people but also of the entire political Ukrainian nation, which, of course, includes Jews,” the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine said.

On Friday, Putin claimed at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that the Ukrainian President is “not Jewish” and a “disgrace to the Jewish people” despite his Jewish roots.

“My Jewish friends say that Zelenskyy is not a Jew, but a shame to the Jewish people,” Putin said.

Russia will take into account the “behaviour” of Western media and attitudes to Russian reporters abroad when deciding whether to accredit their journalists for major forums in Russia, the state-owned TASS news agency quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying on Saturday.

Journalists from countries that Russia calls “unfriendly” did not get accreditation for the ongoing St Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Asked whether Moscow will allow Western journalists to attend forums in Russia in the future, Peskov said: “Let’s see what the regime will be, how they (foreign media) will behave.”

Peskov added that the issue of giving accreditations would also depend on how Russian journalists were treated in “unfriendly” countries. Moscow uses that label for states which imposed sanctions over what the Kremlin calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

“Everything will depend on the attitude towards our journalists in foreign – unfriendly – countries,” TASS cited Kremlin spokesman as saying.

“Business as usual will no longer happen. We will be ready to receive them (Western journalists), but we will not tolerate such treatment of our journalists abroad.”

Russian air defence units repelled a Ukrainian attack overnight on a pumping station on the Druzhba oil pipeline in the Bryansk region adjoining Ukraine, the region’s governor said on Saturday.

Three Ukrainian military drones were destroyed in the attack in the Novozybkov district, Alexander Bogomaz wrote on Telegram.

Drone attacks inside Russia have been increasing in recent weeks, frequently targeting energy facilities. Russia blames Ukraine although Kyiv does not publicly acknowledge responsibility for them.

The southern branch of the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline crosses Ukraine and, despite the conflict there, continues to supply crude oil to Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

Some Ukrainians who fled to the UK are having to leave the country because they cannot find housing, a volunteer made an MBE has said.

Alice Good, 55, from Northumberland, said she is “honoured and overwhelmed” to be recognised in the King’s Birthday Honours for setting up Sunflower Sisters, a support group for families arriving in the country from Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia last February.

Ms Good, who came up with the idea after seeing a picture of a mother with a child the same age as her daughter, said 14,000 refugees have been housed by her group.

She has called on the Government to step in as families come to the end of their sponsorship arrangements and try to find their own private rented accommodation.