CONFLICTSUKRAINE
Ukraine: No ground lost amid counterattack, Zelenskyy says
Published 1 hour agoPublished 1 hour agolast updated 18 minutes agolast updated 18 minutes ago
Ukraine’s president promised Ukrainian flags would soon fly over Russia-occupied territory in the south and east. Meanwhile, Prague is renaming a street due to the war, affecting some 5,000 residents. DW has the latest.
https://p.dw.com/p/4SnAv
Ukrainian soldiers from the 80th Air Assault Brigade in Donetsk
Zelenskyy claims his military has yet to suffer any losses in its counteroffensiveImage: Wojciech Grzedzinski/AA/picture alliance
Kyiv has lost no terrain amid a counteroffensive launched recently to reclaim territories occupied by Russia since its invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.
Zelenskyy added during his nightly address on Monday that Ukrainian “warriors” were defending positions in certain areas while resisting Russian assaults in others.
“We have no lost positions. Only liberated ones. They have only losses,” he said.
The president promised that Ukrainian flags would soon be flying “all over our south and all over our east.” He thanked all the fighters involved in the ongoing counteroffensive “for each liberated and each defended position.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar acknowledged the difficulty faced by Kyiv in its counteroffensive, but maintained that the “biggest blow” was yet to come.
Maliar said in a Telegram post that the Ukrainian military was moving forward as planned.
“The enemy will not easily give up their positions, and we must prepare ourselves for a tough duel,” she nevertheless added. “In fact, that is what is happening right now.”
Ukraine is believed to have launched its long awaited counteroffensive two weeks ago, following months of preparations. It hopes to reclaim nearly a fifth of its land, now under Moscow’s occupation.
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Here are some of the other developments concerning Russia’s war in Ukraine on Tuesday, June 20:
Ukraine says Hungary ignoring requests for contacting POWs
Ukraine has accused the Hungarian government of ignoring its requests to contact Ukrainian prisoners of war Kyiv claims had been secretly transferred from Russia.
“All attempts by Ukrainian diplomats over recent days to establish direct contact with Ukrainian citizens have failed,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko said on his Facebook page.
“This, as well as information received from the relatives of some of them, indicates that the Hungarian authorities’ assurances of the alleged free status of Ukrainian defenders in Hungary are not true,” he added.
Budapest said on June 9 that it had received 11 Ukrainian prisoners of war from Russia. Hungarian and international media quoted the Hungarian president’s chief-of-staff as saying that the soldiers arrived in Hungary “on their own free will” and they could “freely” leave.
“We do not check or monitor them,” chief-of-staff Gergely Gulyas was quoted as saying.
Hungary, a member of the European Union, had enjoyed strong ties with Moscow before the war, and it did not sever them after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Paris, Rome supply Ukraine with Samp/T air defense system
Ukraine is currently relying on the Samp/T air defense system, supplied by France and Italy, to defend itself against Moscow amid the ongoing battles, French President Emmanuel Macron said late on Monday.
The system, jointly developed by France and Italy since the start of the century, defends against aircraft and missiles.
Kyiv was relying on it to protect key facilities and human lives, Macron said.
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Prague renamed street to impact some 5,000 residents
Some 5,000 residents of a 3.4 kilometer-long (roughly 2.11 miles) street in the Czech capital are bracing for a paperwork headache, after the government decided to rename a street due to the Russian war on Ukraine.
The Ivan Stepanovich Konev street, named after the Soviet general, will be renamed “Hartigova” as of October, a spokesman for the city council announced on Monday.
Residents will be obliged to change their identity cards and other documents within six months, to reflect their new address.
In April 2020, Prague disposed of a massive statue of Konev which was placed in the capital’s Interbrigade Square, much to the ire of Moscow. Russia at the time branded it an “act of vandalism.”
Ivan Stepanovich Konev is credited for liberating Prague from Nazi rule toward the end of World War II.
rmt/wd (dpa, Reuters)
