In today's summary:
- For two weeks of offensive operations, Ukrainian troops occupied 113 km²;
- The Armed Forces of Ukraine are advancing in the Zaporozhye direction: apparently, the settlement of Pyatikhatki is occupied;
- The RF Armed Forces are deploying units from the Kherson region to Zaporozhye and Bakhmut;
- In the Sumy region, as a result of a massive shelling, two people were killed, nine were injured;
- In the Rykovo area north of the Crimean peninsula, a large Russian ammunition depot was hit;
- The Armed Forces of Ukraine reported four Ka-52 helicopters shot down, at least one was actually damaged;
- Peskov gave an original interpretation of the task of "demilitarization" of Ukraine, saying that it was "largely accomplished";
- The Russians do not have enough dynamic protection for tanks, they turn to volunteers for help.
The situation at the front
Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Anna Malyar summed up the results of two weeks of offensive operations in the south of the Zaporozhye region and in the south-west of the Donetsk region (in the terminology of the Armed Forces of Ukraine – the Melitopol and Berdyansk directions ). According to her, the Tavria operational-strategic grouping of troops occupied eight settlements: Novodarovka , Levadnoe , Storozhevoe , Makarovka , Blagodatnoye , Lobkovoe , Neskuchnoye and Pyatikhatki . The total advance was up to 7 km in the depth of defense, 113 km² were liberated.
Later, Malyar reported on a “difficult” situation in the east, where the enemy had pulled up troops to the Liman and Kupyansk directions and was conducting attacks, trying to seize the initiative.
Over the past few days, the most active battles have been going on in the area of the village of Pyatikhatki . A video from Pyatikhatki was posted on the social networks of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which depicts servicemen of the 128th mountain assault brigade and the 2nd separate rifle battalion, under their feet a flag with the symbols of Ossetia (a historical region that includes the Russian subject of North Ossetia and is recognized by Russia independent autonomy within Georgia South Ossetia).
As far as can be judged from the posted video, the defense of Pyatikhatki was actually carried out by volunteer Ossetian units "Storm. Ossetia" and "Alania". The Telegram channel of these units reports that control over the settlement was returned (without photo or video evidence). Nina Baitsaeva, assistant to the head of the administration of the head and government of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, reports that Ivango Tekhov, deputy commander of the Storm.Ossetia battalion, died in Pyatikhatki .
Footage of the assault on Pyatihatki was also published on the Telegram channel of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzny.
The Telegram channel Rybar, affiliated with the Russian Defense Ministry, writes that the Ukrainian military is creating fortifications around Pyatikhatki and is trying to expand the “gray zone” near the settlement. At the same time, the main hostilities are taking place near Orekhovo . Here, according to the authors of the channel, the Russian military restored lost positions south of Novodanilovka . The "destruction" of a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group in the area of Malaya Tokmachka is reported.
"Voenkor" Semyon Pegov claims that in the direction of Orekhov – Rabotino, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are hitting the positions and supply routes of the Russians. In addition to the work of artillery and the Grad MLRS, it is noted that the tanks even fire at “two soldiers who appeared in the visibility zone.”
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported on the reflection of four attacks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area of the Vremevsky salient . In this case, we are talking about the settlements of Rovnopol and Novodonetskoye , which are located respectively to the west and east of it, and the ledge itself has already been practically eliminated as a result of the advance of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Voenkor Alexander Sladkov claimed on Saturday that the Russian 127th motorized rifle division was able to recover "all recaptured positions" in the area.
"Voyenkor" Alexander Garmaev publishes photographs , as stated, from under Urozhaynoye , where the 37th separate guards motorized rifle brigade of the RF Armed Forces operates. They depict the dead soldiers of the 37th Separate Naval Infantry Brigade of the Ukrainian Navy and the destroyed American Oshkosh M-ATV armored car. This is not the first, in its own way, curious confrontation between formations with matching numbers: in the winter of 2022–2023, the Russian 72nd separate motorized rifle brigade took part in an unsuccessful attack on Ugledar , which was defended, among other things, by the 72nd separate mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian OSINT project DeepState writes about the APU taking height 224.0 north of Orekhovo-Vasilyevka near Bakhmut . Servicemen of various Russian units were taken prisoner. Among them are representatives of various “volunteer” detachments, including the Wagnerites, as well as servicemen of the 200th separate motorized rifle brigade.
British military intelligence reports the transfer of units from the Kherson direction to Zaporozhye and Bakhmut . We are talking about the 34th motorized rifle brigade, airborne units and marines attached to the 49th combined arms army, which holds the defense along the Dnieper as part of the Russian group of the same name.
Russian sources are circulating notable videos of Middle Eastern armored IED tactics. The military correspondents call them "jihadi tanks". In one case, we are talking about a tank stuffed with explosives, which did not reach the stronghold of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and was blown up by a mine, after which there was a powerful secondary detonation of the contents of the vehicle.
In the second video, Russian sappers sent a trophy tractor loaded with explosives towards Ukrainian positions. It is alleged that he destroyed the stronghold of the enemy. It is worth noting that, unlike Middle Eastern IEDs based on vehicles, which are either controlled by suicide bombers or equipped with remote control, the Russians, according to them, used a rather original, albeit unreliable and risky method: “At 300 meters from the enemy, a mechanic driver I put the car on manual gas, sent it in his direction and jumped out.
Mutual shelling and sabotage
According to the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on the night of June 19, four Caliber cruise missiles and four kamikaze drones of the Shahed family (aka Geran) were shot down. Missile launches were carried out from a submarine in the Black Sea, and UAVs from the eastern coast of the Sea of Azov.
During June 17 and the first half of June 18, it was reported that two Ka-52 attack helicopters, four Shahids, one Lancet loitering ammunition, and seven reconnaissance drones were shot down.
At night , the city of Belopolye in the Sumy region came under artillery attack. Two people were killed and nine were injured. The administrative building and the school were destroyed, other buildings were damaged.
A new turn took place in history with the June 16 missile attack on Kiev . Russian "military correspondents", following the press secretary of the President of South Africa, questioned that the strike itself had taken place. However, later the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation issued an official statement about the infliction of a "group strike" on one of the "decision-making centers" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. As usual, it is said that the goal was achieved, and the object (which one is not specified) was hit.
In the Belgorod region, the Valuysky urban district came under heavy shelling. We are talking about arrivals in the villages of Verigovka , Novopetrovka , as well as in the very regional center of Valuyki , which, according to Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, was fired from the Grad MLRS and artillery. Eight victims are known, including one child. Damaged houses and cars.
In the Kursk region on June 18, three villages in the Glushkovsky district came under fire: Tetkino , Popovo-Lezhachi , and Glushkovo itself.
In the Bryansk region, on June 18, drones dropped ammunition at the Maritskaya substation , and also tried to attack the PS of the Druzhba oil pipeline . The power cable and line switch at the substation were damaged , as a result of which Sevsk and nine other settlements were de-energized. About the downing of three drones that tried to attack the NPS, the governor of the region Alexander Bogomaz wrote on his Telegram channel.
Apparently, a large ammunition depot near Rykovo in the Genichesk district of the part of the Kherson region occupied by Russian troops, where a large Russian ammunition depot was located, was hit . After the detonation of the shells, the elevator buildings nearby were partially destroyed. Recall that with the start of the use of the HIMARS MLRS, the Armed Forces of Ukraine began to actively hit Russian ammunition depots in the area of \u200b\u200bthe railway final unloading points near the front line, but then the Russians moved the warehouses beyond the range of the GMLRS missiles (as stated, for example, in the report of the British Royal United Institute for Defense Studies).
However, now the Armed Forces of Ukraine have more long-range air-launched cruise missiles Storm Shadow, in the event of the systematic use of which Russian logistics will become even more complicated (the explosion occurred on the only active railway line leading from Russia through the annexed Crimea to the front in the Zaporozhye direction ).
It is also reported about a strike on the command post of the 80th motorized rifle brigade of the RF Armed Forces, which fought in the “southern direction”. It is noted that on a permanent basis it is based on the territory of the village of Alakurtti in the Murmansk region and was allegedly sent to the front due to a shortage of manpower in Ukraine.
The “head” of the so-called “DPR” Denis Pushilin spoke about the strike on Volnovakha with the help of Western-style MLRS. According to him, arrivals were recorded near a bus stop, a school and a warehouse with humanitarian aid. It is reported about 20 wounded. Pushilin also writes about the death of a 6-year-old girl who was blown up in the courtyard of a house by a mine thrown there by a remote mining system.
Losses
A British military intelligence report says that Russian troops appear to be suffering the most significant casualties since March of this year, when the Battle of Bakhmut culminated.
The Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine published on their Telegram channel a video showing the clearing of Russian trenches somewhere in the “southern direction”: it is alleged that 10 servicemen were killed in total. The Telegram channel Rybar, affiliated with the Russian Defense Ministry, writes that this video illustrates a common problem: Russian commanders often do not issue weapons to personnel, and they are stored in field pyramids “for order”. Also, the mobilized are given 120 rounds of ammunition per person, "so that they don't lose."
A video is being circulated on Russian Telegram channels showing the Marines of the Pacific Fleet inspecting a French AMX-10RC wheeled-cannon reconnaissance and fire vehicle abandoned by Ukrainians (probably by the 37th brigade in the Novodonetsk region) abandoned by the Ukrainians.
Russian servicemen captured on video mistakenly refer to the AMX-10RC as a "tank" and criticize the vehicle for its lack of an automatic gun loader. Note that it is in principle incorrect to compare the AMX-10RC with tanks, since it is primarily a means of reconnaissance and fire support. Ukrainian fighters told the DeepState project that, despite weak armor, the AMX-10RC gun works “like a sniper rifle.” “The main thing is not to use them for frontal assaults,” the authors of the project add.
The head of Estonian military intelligence, Margo Grosberg, believes that the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost less than 10% of the delivered Western equipment during the counteroffensive. He says that she is better protected than the Russian and Soviet ones, which means that the survival rate of her crew members is higher. According to other estimates, Ukrainian troops retain 96% of the delivered modern armored vehicles. On June 18, the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost five Leopard 2A6 and two 2A4 tanks, two AMX-10RC "wheeled tanks" and eighteen Bradley infantry fighting vehicles.
The shortage of civilian vehicles in the RF Armed Forces, which is urgently needed for logistics and evacuation needs, is aggravated by incidents that several "military correspondents" told about at once. Alexander Kots writes about an incident in the 103rd regiment of the 105th division, the commander of which shot from a machine gun cars and ATVs bought for personal money by the military and volunteers themselves. According to Roman Saponkov, the military prosecutor's office is investigating the officer's actions. Aleksey Sukonkin, in the light of what happened , confirms the "extreme shortage" of transport to carry out tasks in the frontline zone. It is worth noting that a serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine wrote about a similar incident on the Ukrainian side at the end of May.
On the territory of the part of the Russian Navy in Sevastopol, a monument to the crew of the tug "Vasily Bekh" was erected . The ship was used to deliver personnel and supplies to Zmeiny Island and was sunk in 2022. Then the Navy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported the death of 70% of the crew, which could consist of 26 people. Now it is reported that there were 9 civilian and 14 military crew members on board, of which seven and four were killed, respectively.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry talks about the failure of negotiations with Hungary on the return of 11 Ukrainian prisoners of war, who were handed over to it by the Russian side. The military is not allowed to freely communicate with relatives or establish contact with the Ukrainian embassy. Earlier, Russian sources reported that the prisoners lived in Transcarpathia .
Since June 16, the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has reported the defeat of four Ka-52 attack helicopters. There is no independent confirmation of the loss of at least one of them. A picture of a Ka-52 helicopter returning to base from a sortie with a destroyed tail has appeared in the Z-channels. It is reported that it will be quickly restored after repair.
Perhaps this incident may be related to one of the reports of downed Ka-52s. The practice of the Russian-Ukrainian war and other conflicts shows that the parties often report to the command about the destruction of enemy equipment, even if it was only hit or fired upon, in order to improve their own performance and / or receive a bonus due to this. The Fighterbomber channel, also associated with the Russian Aerospace Forces, writes that the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not shoot down a single Russian aircraft during the offensive, but notes that at least one was hit by enemy MANPADS.
The other day, Vladimir Putin said that Russian forces destroyed five Patriot complexes at once. Vladimir Zelensky, on the other hand, stated that not a single Patriot was destroyed. The GeoConfirmed project conducted its own investigation, finding out that only one explosion took place in the area of \u200b\u200bthe alleged position of the air defense system (at the same time, American sources said that one of the machines of the complex was damaged, but subsequently restored on the spot). Thus, we cannot even talk about the destruction of five Patriot launchers ( declared by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation), not to mention five complexes (at the moment only two complexes have been delivered, each of which includes up to 8 installations).
Remarkable news from the village of Kuratovo in the Komi Republic . Commemorative plaques were placed on the wall of the local school building in memory of the father and son of the Tutrinovs. They died in two wars unleashed by Russia. Semyon Tutrinov died in Chechnya in 2002, and his son Alexander Tutrinov, who was born a year before his father's death, in 2022 in Ukraine. Both were awarded the Order of Courage posthumously and studied at this school.
Armaments and military equipment
Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov said that the task of "demilitarization" of Ukraine has been largely completed. According to him, this is evidenced by the fact that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are using less and less of their weapons and more and more Western ones. Thus, "demilitarization" is interpreted as the replacement of obsolete Soviet weapons with modern Western ones.
The EU will accelerate the delivery of weapons and equipment to the Armed Forces of Ukraine in order to support the counter-offensive, no matter how fast it develops. European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton says the war could go on for months, "maybe even longer."
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation publishes a video with a visit by Sergei Shoigu to an armored plant in the Omsk region . Judging by the video, the plan of the plant provides for the production of 153 units of T-80BVM tanks in 2023. Of these, 15 have already been loaded into the train, which will go to the front. On the footage you can see the T-80BVM with the Nakidka visibility reduction system, which was previously installed only on the T-90M, as well as with the factory-installed "visor" on the turret (which, as it turned out, is officially called the "quick-detachable dynamic roof protection module "). It is also reported that 4,000 pieces of artillery have already been prepared and sent to war at this plant, and another 700 are planned to be delivered in the near future.
The Russians report a lack of dynamic protection "Kontakt-1" for tanks. It is a metal box in which explosives are laid, and allows you to reduce damage when it hits a combat vehicle. For this reason, Russian volunteers are appealing to private companies to manufacture such protective elements on their own.
Politico published an investigation into how American 338 caliber cartridges get to Russia and then to the front. It turns out that they are purchased as "hunting cartridges" and supplied as ammunition for Russian-made ORSIS T-5000 sniper rifles.
The video shows a new version of the modernization of the MT-LB Armed Forces of Ukraine, which are equipped with additional protection and remote-controlled machine guns with thermal imaging sights.
The Insider publishes a selection of the most bizarre examples of homemade armored vehicles (including the MT-LB) seen in the ranks of the Russian Armed Forces.
О главных событиях войны 16 июня — в предыдущей сводке: «ВСУ штурмуют Пятихатки, по Киеву ударили «Кинжалами», Путин «уничтожил» пять комплексов Patriot. What's Happening on the Frontline