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Ukrainian forces have retaken a small village in the south of the country, a localRussian official and military bloggers said on Sunday, one of the first reports of a territorial gain in the Zaporizhzhia region since the start of a major counteroffensive earlier this month.

Vladimir Rogov, a Kremlin-appointed regional official, said on the Telegram messaging app that Ukrainian troops had taken the village of Piatykhatky under operational control, and were entrenching themselves there. Russian forces, he added, were using artillery fire in an attempt to wrest it back.

There was no independent confirmation of those claims. The Ukrainian militarys nightly General Staff update said Russian forces were on the defensive in the region, but made no mention of the village.

Piatykhatky is one of many villages along the southern frontline and its recapture, if confirmed, is unlikely to represent a major military breakthrough for Ukraine. Still, it would be the first village retaken in recent days, and add to the seven villages that Ukrainian officials said they had recaptured further east in the Donetsk region as part of the counteroffensive that began about a week and a half ago.

Our troops are advancing, position by position, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in his nightly address on Sunday. Step by step, we are moving forward.

Those gains so far have come at the cost of Ukrainian lives and advanced Western equipment, but military analysts caution that it could take weeks or months to gauge the success of the counteroffensive.

An official statement from the Russian Ministry of Defense summarizing the fighting on Sunday said that an attack on Piatykhatky had been repelled. But Russian military bloggers, who are often the first to announce battlefield developments in Ukraine, said Moscows forces had lost the village after three days of intense fighting.

Our artillery continues to strike at the enemy infantry, entrenched in this village, wrote Semyon Pegov, who writes under the name War Gonzo and has more than 1.3 million followers on Telegram. Mr. Pegov was among the pro-Kremlin war correspondents who met with President Vladimir V. Putin last week.

Mikhail Zvinchuk, who writes under the pseudonym Rybar, said that Russian units had retreated from the village, but that the fighting continued on its outskirts. Another blog called A Veterans Notes, which aggregates other reports along with some commentary and analysis, described ferocious fighting in the area.

A large Ukrainian force was making a sustained attempt to break through Russias defensive lines, the unnamed blogger wrote, with losses on both sides and the stench of dead bodies drifting over the battlefield. Many wounded due to continuous artillery shelling, the account said.

Ukraines counteroffensive has intensified the fighting at several points along the front line in the south, but has shown little sign of a significant breakthrough so far. A British defense intelligence report said on Sunday that both sides were suffering high casualties and military experts say that it is likely that months of artillery duels and trench warfare lie ahead. Independent analysts say that it will be difficult for Ukrainian forces to break through heavily fortified Russian lines defended by tank traps, minefields and artillery.

In hopes of making it harder for Russia to fend off the counterattack, Ukraine has followed a pattern it established last year of launching a series of strikes behind the front lines that target ammunition dumps, military infrastructure and other elements of Moscows war machine.

Military officials said on Sunday that Ukraine had struck an ammunition dump near the village of Rykove, in the Kherson region. The claims could not be immediately verified, but satellite imagery reviewed by The Times showed heavy damage in an industrial area adjacent to a rail line in Rykove, with smoke still rising from the debris on Sunday morning.

Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesman for the Odesa military administration, posted video footage on the Telegram messaging app that was taken from a distance but appeared to show a large fire and smoke billowing above fields.

Our armed forces dealt a good blow in the morning, and a very loud one, in the village of Rykove, Mr. Bratchuk wrote. There was no immediate comment from Russian authorities.

The area is significant because it is close to a bridge connecting Crimea which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014 with a belt of land occupied by Russia north of the Sea of Azov. Military analysts say that one of the probable goals of the counteroffensive is to cut the land bridge that connects Crimea to Russia.

Rykove is about 70 miles behind the closest area of the front line, the Dnipro River, where Ukrainian forces control the west bank and Russian forces the east. It was not clear how the attack took place, but that would put the village in the range of an attack by a long-range Storm Shadow missile, which Britain said in recent weeks it had donated to Ukraine. The U.S.-supplied HIMARS rocket is also capable of hitting targets dozens of miles behind the front lines.

Dam disaster: As Ukraine pursues its counteroffensive, it continues to deal with the aftermath of an explosion on June 6 that destroyed the Kakhovka dam on the lower Dnipro River, flooding parts of the Kherson region and elsewhere and causing environmental devastation.

The death toll continued to climb on Sunday. In the Ukrainian-held territory, 17 people have died in the flooding and 31 others are missing, the Ministry of Internal Affairs said in a Telegram post. In the Russia-occupied portion of the Kherson region, a Kremlin-backed official, Andrei Alekseyenko, reported six more deaths, raising the death toll to 35.

Moscow has blamed Ukraine for the explosion, but evidence suggests that the dam, which was controlled by Russian forces, was destroyed from within.

Denise Brown, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine, said in a statement on Sunday that the Kremlin had declined a request to access Russian-controlled areas to provide emergency assistance. Aid cannot be denied to people who need it, she said.

Border shelling: Ukrainian and Russian officials reported shelling in civilian areas on both sides of Ukraines northeastern border on Sunday. Roman Starovoit, the governor of Russias Kursk region, said that Ukraine had targeted three settlements in the Glushkovsky district. Across the border, about 40 miles away, a father and his 4-year-old son were killed by shelling in Ukraines Sumy region, the countrys Ministry of Internal Affairs said.

NATO membership: President Biden has been facing pressure from Ukraines allies to hasten Ukraines NATO membership bid and offer a more certain path to joining the alliance, but he has not yet changed his stance. On Saturday, Mr. Biden appeared to reinforce that position, suggesting that there would be no quick route for Ukraine, which submitted an application to join the alliance last September.

Theyve got to meet the same standards. So were not going to make it easy, the president told reporters. Membership in the alliance, which would put Ukraine under NATOs security umbrella, is viewed by Mr. Zelensky as a core strategic objective. It will probably be discussed next month at a NATO summit in Lithuania.

Gabriela S Pessoa contributed reporting.

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Ukraine Appears to Make a Small Gain in the South as Counteroffensive Continues - The New York Times

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday night dismissed Russias fortifications along a 900-mile-long front line that military experts say is slowing Ukraines offensive, saying there are no such fortifications or reserves that will stop Ukraine.

We have no lost positions, Zelensky said in his nightly address. Only liberated ones. Ukrainian forces continued to make limited gains in at least four sectors, the Institute for the Study of War think tank said in an analysis. Ukraines deputy defense minister said the situation in eastern Ukraine is difficult, with Russia conducting hot battles in the region.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday during a trip to Beijing that he welcomes China playing a role toward a just and durable peace in Ukraine. He added that he and European leaders received assurances from China that it will not provide lethal assistance to Russia in the invasion.

Heres the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.

Last month, anti-corruption investigators said they caught Vsevolod Knyazyev, chief justice of the countrys Supreme Court, receiving a payment of about $450,000 as part of a $2.7 million bribery scheme. This is huge. This is not an ordinary judge in a local court taking a bribe its the highest judge in the system, said Tetiana Shevchuk, a lawyer with the Anti-Corruption Action Center, an anti-graft watchdog in Kyiv.

Loveday Morris and Emily Rauhala contributed to this report.

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Ukraine live briefing: Situation in east is 'difficult,' says Ukraine's deputy defense minister - The Washington Post

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) The Kremlins spokesman said Monday that U.N. aid workers who want to visit areas ravaged by the recent Kakhovka dam collapse in southern Ukraine cant go there because fighting in the war makes it unsafe.

The United Nations rebuked Moscow on Sunday for allegedly denying aid workers access to Russian-occupied areas where residents are stranded amid devastating destruction.

The U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown, said in a statement that her staff were engaging with both Kyiv and Moscow, which control different parts of the area, in a bid to reach civilians in need. They face a shortage of drinking water and food and a lack of power.

Brown urged Russian authorities to act in accordance with their obligations under international humanitarian law and let them in.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov didnt explicitly admit that Russia had blocked U.N. access, but told a conference call with reporters that Ukrainian attacks made a visit too risky.

There has been constant shelling, constant provocations, civilian facilities and the civilian population have come under fire, people have died, so its really difficult to ensure their security, Peskov said.

His comments came amid varying accounts by survivors of the quality of assistance that Russia is providing in areas it controls. The dam lies on the Dnieper River, which forms the front line between Russian and Ukrainian forces on the eastern and western banks, respectively.

Many evacuees and residents accuse Russian authorities of doing little or nothing to help. Some civilians said that evacuees were sometimes forced to present Russian passports if they wanted to leave.

On the Ukrainian side, rescuers are braving Russian snipers as they rush to ferry Ukrainians out of Russia-occupied flood zones.

Ukraines Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko said Monday that the death toll resulting from the dam collapse had risen to 18 14 from drowning and four from gunshot wounds sustained during evacuation. A further 31 people were missing, he said.

Ukraines presidential office said Monday that the Kherson region affected by the flooding had endured 35 Russian attacks over the previous 24 hours.

Exclusive drone photos and information obtained by The Associated Press indicate that Moscow had the means, motive and opportunity to blow up the dam, which was under Russian control, earlier this month.

The explosion occurred as Ukraine mustered for a counteroffensive. Kyivs forces have intensified attacks along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line recently.

Some analysts saw the dam breach as a Russian effort to thwart Ukraines counteroffensive in the Kherson region.

The U.K. Defense Ministry said Monday that Russia had recently redeployed several thousand troops from the banks of the Dnieper to buttress its positions in the Zaporizhzhia and Bakhmut sectors, which reportedly have seen heavy fighting.

The move likely reflects Russias perception that a major Ukrainian attack across the Dnieper is now less likely following the dams collapse, the ministry said in a tweet.

Ukrainian forces have advanced up to 7 kilometers (4 miles) into territory previously held by Russia, she said. Russias Defense Ministry didnt confirm losing any ground to the Ukrainian forces.

In response to increased attacks by the occupiers, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday in his nightly address that Ukrainian soldiers were moving forward in some directions, defending their positions in some directions.

We have no lost positions. Only liberated ones, he asserted.

It wasnt possible to independently verify battlefield claims by either side.

Russia is also pursuing offensive actions, according to Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar.

Russia has concentrated a significant number of its military units, and particularly airborne assault troops, in Ukraines east, she said. They are stepping up Moscows offensive around Kupiansk in Ukraines northeastern Kharkiv province and Lyman in the eastern Donetsk province, Maliar said on Telegram.

Ukrainian forces may have put their counteroffensive operations on hold as they review their tactics, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.

It noted that Kyiv has not yet committed the majority of its available forces to counteroffensive operations and has not yet launched its main effort.

Russia attacked south and southeast Ukraine overnight with cruise missiles and self-exploding drones, Ukraines air force reported Monday. Four Kalibr missiles and four Iranian-made Shahed drones were shot down, it said.

According to regional officials, the southern province of Odesa and the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region were targeted by the attack. No casualties or damage were immediately reported.

Three civilians were wounded by artillery fire in the Beryslav district of the Kherson province Monday, local officials said. A 64-year-old woman was in critical condition, according to their Telegram post. At least five residential buildings, two private residences and an administrative building sustained damage.

Officials in Russias southern Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, said Monday morning that seven people, including a child, were wounded in Ukrainian drone attacks over the previous 24 hours.

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Associated Press writer Elise Morton contributed from London.

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Follow APs coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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UN complains Russia blocks aid workers from area of Ukraine dam collapse; Moscow says it's unsafe - The Associated Press

KA-52 tail lost ukraine

Its fair to say that the Ka-52 Hokum attack helicopter has become something of a signature weapon on the Russian side in the conflict in Ukraine. Reflecting the mixed results of the Kremlins war more generally, the Ka-52 has sustained heavy losses, shown some apparently problematic flying characteristics when heavily loaded with weapons, and performed some very ill-advised stunts. Meanwhile, it has also borne the brunt of the close air support missions now being flown in an effort to blunt the Ukrainian counteroffensive. And for one Ka-52 crew, the helicopters unique configuration very likely saved their lives during one, apparently recent mission.

A Russian Ka-52 helicopter flying with a damaged tail. https://t.co/n3EImSNpFK pic.twitter.com/nUNlqMkS08

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) June 19, 2023

A video that began to circulate on social media today shows a Ka-52 flying at a relatively low level, with its tail torn apart, the remnants of the vertical fin dangling precariously from the rear. A photo of the helicopter after landing reveals how that part of the empennage was twisted around to more than 90 degrees but somehow remained attached.

pic.twitter.com/mi8WvDVGI0

— ?MilitaryNewsUA?? (@front_ukrainian) June 19, 2023

The video seems to have been shot from the cockpit of the Ka-52s wingman, or another accompanying helicopter. While we cant be sure where the video was taken, or when, it seems almost certain it was in southeastern Ukraine, with what looks like part of the Black Sea coastline visible at the start.

As well as the wrecked tail, several items can be seen falling away from the Ka-52 right at the start of the video, apparently stores jettisoned by the crew, but they could potentially also be other parts of the tail assembly that fell away.

There have been claims that the crews jettisoning of external stores in particular, the fuel tanks is what led to the tail damage in the first place, with one of these tanks said to have been thrown back up into the slipstream and impacted the tail. Its not possible to tell, looking at this video, whether thats the case, although the fact that four items are apparently jettisoned suggests that drop tanks (carried in pairs) and rocket pods were discarded. That could also suggest that the issue with the tail emerged before the decision was taken to jettison stores.

Story continues

However, poor separation of stores is certainly an issue that can lead to potentially very hazardous impacts on an aircraft.

And here is a video of Russian Ka-52 with a broken tail boom.

When the outboard fuel tanks were jettisoned, they were blown back, and as a result, one of the tanks broke the tail boom of the helicopter.

The helicopter was able to return to its base. pic.twitter.com/RR4ZJgBcbM

— Clash Report (@clashreport) June 19, 2023

The front end of the helicopter seems to have been damaged, too, with a suggestion that the windshield was torn off, or at least some part of the forward fuselage also appears to be missing.

All in all, it seems just as likely that the Ka-52 fell victim to Ukrainian air defenses, which managed to get a hit on the airframe, although without causing enough damage to knock it out of the sky.

Whatever the case, the two-man crew of the attack helicopter has reason to be grateful for the design of their aircraft. One of the key features of the Ka-52 is its unconventional coaxial main rotor arrangement, obviating the need for a tail rotor.

In almost any other helicopter, this level of damage to the tail assembly would be an extremely serious event.

In a conventional helicopter, the tail rotor is mounted at the end of the tail boom. Since the tail rotor provides torque to counteract the main rotors (which are rotating either clockwise or counterclockwise), if it stops functioning, the helicopter will begin spinning in the opposite direction of the main rotor. In the best-case scenario, the pilot will then enter an autorotation and perform an emergency running landing. In the worst case, it will lead to a crash or even a mid-air breakup. The lower and slower a helicopter is flying when it loses its tail rotor, the less likely it is that the pilot will be able to recover at all.

With that in mind, a coaxial main rotor in which there are two sets of main rotors, one above the other, one turning clockwise and one counterclockwise makes a good deal of sense for an attack helicopter, which will likely spend much of its time low and slow. But there are also major tradeoffs to this configuration.

While coaxial main rotors are a trademark of the Kamov design bureaus naval helicopter designs, they also retained them for the (primarily) land-based Ka-50/52 series. These helicopters also have other unusual survivability features, including a crew rescue system.

Often described as being fitted with ejection seats, the Ka-52 actually doesnt have true ejection seats, but instead, a crew extraction system, which doesnt rely on rockets to punch the seats out of the cockpit, but instead to drag them out.

In the Ka-52, the crew extraction system first jettisons the main rotor blades using a series of explosive bolts. The cockpit canopy glass is then jettisoned, and two rocket assemblies are launched out of the cockpit. Each rocket assembly is connected via a lanyard to one of the Zvezda/Tomilino K-37-800M seats, which is then pulled out of the cockpit before a parachute is deployed. The system can be operated at speeds from zero to 189 knots, and also at zero altitude.

Ka-52 alligator and its unique K-37-800M ejection seats. Before the rocket in the ejection seat deploys, the rotor blades are blown away by explosive charges in the rotor disc and the canopy is jettisoned. pic.twitter.com/BzPP9SNXMZ

— ???????? ?. (@VladZinen) December 11, 2020

So far, we have seen surprisingly few conclusive examples of Ka-52 crew using the crew extraction system during the war in Ukraine, although the number of losses suggests that it has likely been used on various other undocumented occasions, successfully or otherwise.

https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1621951537474928641?s=20 https://twitter.com/_davemorrison/status/1576891537190842369?s=20

As it is, we dont know for sure why a Ka-52 was left flying over Ukraine with its tail assembly shredded, although we can say with some certainty that, had they been flying another helicopter type, the crew in question are far less likely to have made it back to their base.

Contact the author: thomas@thedrive.com

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Badly Damaged Russian Ka-52 Attack Helicopter Flies Without Its Tail Over Ukraine - Yahoo News

BLAHODATNE, Ukraine After months of preparation and bolstered by hundreds of donated tanks, armored vehicles and howitzers, Ukraine has notched small successes in the first week and a half of a counteroffensive to drive Russian forces from southern Ukraine.

In fierce fighting on the plains, the military said it had broken through a first line of Russian defenses and reclaimed seven villages.

The fruits of their labor could be seen on a visit with the Ukrainian military to one of those villages, Blahodatne, on Thursday as well as the daunting challenges that lie ahead.

Ukraine has yet to commit the bulk of its reserves, including troops trained in Europe over the winter and spring, and equipped with weaponry from NATO countries, meaning it can bring still more force to bear. But with each step forward, its soldiers become more vulnerable removed from the safety of their own trenches, closer to Russian artillery, maneuvering through minefields and unprotected from airstrikes.

Ukraine is engaged in two main thrusts southward, where it has broken through most deeply in the string of small villages that includes Blahodatne, where the soldiers were diving for cover on Thursday.

For Ukrainian soldiers with the 68th Scout Brigade who entered the villages, the sweetness of liberating land was tempered by the panorama of ruin that greeted them and what came next: a relentless bombardment from Russian forces.

They are attacking with rockets, howitzers, mortars, helicopters and drones, Sgt. Serhiy Gubanov said in an interview while taking cover in a basement as explosions boomed outside.

Its the complete collection of intense experiences, he said.

Maria Varenikova contributed reporting from Konstantinople, Ukraine.

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Ukraine retakes some villages but its forces face minefields and more airstrikes. - The New York Times