Live: Ukrainian President Zelensky visits frontline troops as fighting rages

Issued on: 06/06/2022 – 06:00

3:45am: Ukraine president visits frontlines as fighting rages

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met troops on the frontlines in Donbas Sunday as heavy fighting raged in the eastern industrial region that Moscow has focused its forces on taking.

Zelensky visited command posts and frontline positions in Lysychansk, which sits across the Siverskyi Donets river from Severodonetsk, where Ukrainian troops were pushing back against Russian forces who had earlier appeared on the verge of taking the strategic city.

He also visited Bakhmut, to the southwest in the Donetsk region of Donbas, and talked with servicemen, the presidency said.

“I want to thank you for your great work, for your service, for protecting all of us, our state. I am grateful to everyone,” he told them. “Take care of yourselves!”

On his working visit Zelensky “got himself acquainted with the operational situation on the frontline of defence,” the presidency said.

“I am proud of everyone whom I met, whom I shook hands with, with whom I communicated, whom I supported,” Zelensky said in his daily evening address after his visit.

The president said he also travelled to Zaporizhzhia in the southeast to meet with residents of Mariupol who had managed to leave the port city that was destroyed by months of Russian bombardment.

1:10am: UK to give Ukraine long-range missile systems

Britain said Monday it will mirror the United States and send long-range missile systems to Ukraine, defying warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin against supplying Kyiv with the advanced weapons.  

The UK Ministry of Defence said London had coordinated closely with Washington over its gift of the multiple-launch rocket systems, known as MLRS, to help Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression.

The M270 launchers, which can strike targets up to 80 kilometres (50 miles) away with precision-guided rockets, will “offer a significant boost in capability for the Ukrainian forces,” the ministry added.

The US last week announced it would give Kyiv its high mobility artillery rocket system, known as HIMARS, which can simultaneously launch multiple precision-guided missiles and is superior in range and precision to existing systems Ukraine has.

However, US President Joe Biden has ruled out supplying it with systems that could reach as far as Russia, despite Kyiv’s repeated demands for them.

Despite that, the US move prompted Putin to warn Sunday that Moscow will strike new unspecified “targets” if the West supplies the missiles to Ukraine and said new arms deliveries to Kyiv were aimed at “prolonging the conflict”. 

22:01pm: Ukrainian railways says Russian attacks aim to harm economy and prevent grain exports

Ukrainian authorities have allowed journalists to visit a railway repair works near Kyiv that were hit by Russian misslies early on Sunday morning.

Russia’s defence ministry claimed the strikes destroyed tanks and other armoured vehicles provided to Ukraine by European countries.

“There are apparently no tanks here”, said France 24’s Gulliver Cragg, reporting from the location on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital.

01:18

20:05pm: Ukraine expects ‘major counter-attack’ from Russia in Sievierodonetsk

Ukraine said Sunday its forces controlled half of Sievierodonetsk, but it expects a major major counter-attack from Russian forces in the coming days.

Lugansk’s regional governor, Sergiy Gaiday, said that Russian forces had been tasked with gaining control of the city by Friday, as well as a key transport artery connecting two other nearby cities, Lysychansk and Bakhmut.

“We expect in the near future that all the reserves that they now have access to — all the reserves, all the personnel that they have — they will throw to perform these two tasks,” Gaiday said.

“In the next five days, there will be a large increase in the number of shellings from heavy artillery,” from the Russian side.

Sievierodonetsk is the largest city still in Ukrainian hands in the Lugansk region, which is part of Donbas. Russian forces have been gradually advancing there in recent weeks after having retreated or been pushed back from other areas, including around the capital Kyiv.

19:44pm: Ukraine says it controls ‘half’ of Sievierodonetsk

Ukraine said Sunday its forces controlled half of Sievierodonetsk, as Kyiv’s military pushes back Russia’s attempt to take the eastern city, key to the battle for the Donbas region.

“Our armed forces have cleaned half” of the industrial hub of Russian troops, Lugansk’s regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said in an interview posted on his official social media channels. “Half of the city is actually controlled by our forces.”

(FRANCE24 with REUTERS, AP and AFP)