Zelensky: Ukraine is doing “counterensive and defence operations”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday he has begun counteroffensiva and defence operations against Russian forces. He added that senior Ukrainian commanders are optimistic, while Ukrainian forces are engaged in intensive combat along the front.

During a joint press conference in Kiev with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Ukrainian leader answered a question about comments made the previous day by Russian President Vladimir Putin that he had begun against Ukraine's counteroffensiva and that Ukrainian forces had suffered a significant “ ”.

President Zelensky said that “vs.offensiva, defence actions are taking place in Ukraine. I'm not going to talk about the phase in which they're”.

I am in contact every day with our commanders in different directions”, he added, citing the names of five top Ukrainian military leaders. All are positive. Pass this on Putin”.

Prime Minister Trudeau is the first foreign leader to visit Ukraine since the breach of the Dnieper River dam caused devastating floods. He promised $375m in new military aid, adding to the current $6 billion aid Canada has provided since the start of the war in February 2022. Mr. Trudeau announced another $7.5 million in the form of humanitarian aid after the flood.

Mr. Trudeau said the dam collapse was a direct consequence of the Russian war”, but he did not directly blame Moscow.

Ukraine's General Staff said on Saturday that strong “bets were under way, with over 34 fighting during the previous day in the eastern industrial part of the country. Ukrainian headquarters did not provide further details, but said Russian forces were “changing themselves” and had launched air and artillery attacks in the southern Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizia.

Supreme Ukrainian authorities have not announced a frontal counteroffensive, though some Western analysts have said fierce fighting and the introduction of reserve forces suggest counteroffensive has already begun. Recent supplies with military equipment to Ukraine worth billions of dollars, some of which are highly modern weapons, have increased expectations of their introduction to use and efficiency set up by Russian forces.

For months, Ukrainian commanders in the eastern town of Bakhmut ʹ who were virtually destroyed during the fighting that lasted for months, thus becoming one of the bloodiest battles of the war, have used the language of counterattack operations and defence operations to describe the activity there.

Ukraine's Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malar said on Friday that the combat episode was in the east, especially in the Donnetsk region, and mentioned the “tough battlements” in Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdivka and Marinka.

Valerii Serben, spokesman for the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Zaporizhja, told Radio Freedom (Radio Liberty) that they were identifying weaknesses in Russia's defence in the western part of the region.

The company managing the operation of the nuclear power plant in Zaporzya, the largest in Europe and which has been occupied by Russian forces, announced Thursday the removal of the last reactor by six reactors, five of which had been shut down since before.

“Energoatom”, the Ukrainian nuclear agency, said in a statement late Friday that there were no “zero direct threat to the plant in Zaporizia because of the khakovka dam split in the Dniper River, which has forced thousands of people to leave due to floods and has also significantly reduced the water level to a reservoir used for the cooling of the nuclear plant.

“Energoatom” said it shut down the last reactor due to lower water level and due to bombings near the facility that have damaged power lines linking the thermal power plant to the Ukrainian power system. The plant in Zaporzya was occupied by Russian forces from the early stages of the war but is operated by Ukrainian personnel.

Power units in the facility have not worked since September of last year. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency will visit Ukraine in the coming days.

Also Saturday morning, Ukrainian authorities reported that at least four civilians have died across the country after Russian forces attacked with Shahed drones produced by Iran, rockets, artillery and mortars.

The Ukrainian State Emergency Service reported that 3 people were killed and more than 24 were injured overnight in an attack on the Black Sea port of Odessa. A spokesperson for Ukraine's Southern Operational Command, Natalia Humenick, said two children and one pregnant woman were among the injured.

The Ukrainian air force said that during the night, 20 of the 35 Shahed drones had collapsed and two of the eight attacks of various “types of” released by Russian forces.

Wars and victims in the ranks of civilians drew attention after authorities in southern Ukraine said water levels have come to decline in a large area under the split dam.

Nearly a third of the protected natural areas in the Kherson region could disappear from floods after the dam broke in Kakhovka, Ukraine's environment minister warned on Saturday.

UN humanitarian aid director Martin Griffiths said in an interview for the Associated Press news agency on Friday that an extraordinary 700 thousand people need drinking water.