Although the Russians control 70 percent of the city of Sieverodonetsk, they were pushed back and Ukraine was able to report territorial gains in the city. All news about the attack on Ukraine can be found here in the ticker.
10.47 a.m .: According to British findings, Ukrainian troops recently counterattacked in the embattled city of Sievjerodonetsk. The Ministry of Defense in London said on Sunday that they would have probably weakened the operational dynamics that the Russian armed forces had previously gained by concentrating their units and firepower.
The deployed Russian forces are also reserves of the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Luhansk, it said. These troops are poorly equipped and trained, lacking heavy equipment compared to regular units.
The deployment of auxiliary troops to clear cities from the enemy is a tactic that Russia has already used in Syria, the ministry said. This approach is believed to have arisen from a desire to limit the casualties of regular Russian forces.
9:53 a.m .: The Ukrainian state energy company Energoatom said on Sunday morning that a Russian rocket had flown “extremely low” over the nuclear power plant in Mykolaiv Oblast. The rocket was probably on its way to Kyiv.
The danger here: Even a tiny fragment of the rocket, if it detaches and falls into the nuclear power plant, could trigger a nuclear catastrophe, the company said. Energoatom calls the low-flying missile “another act of nuclear terrorism.”
09.35 a.m .: Ukraine has reported territorial gains in the embattled city of Sieverodonetsk. “The Russians controlled about 70 percent of the city, but in the past two days they have been pushed back,” said the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaiday, on Sunday in the online service Telegram. “The city is divided in two, they are afraid to move freely there.” Eight Russian soldiers were arrested.
The Russian side reported the withdrawal of some Ukrainian soldiers from Sievjerodonetsk on Saturday. “Some units of the Ukrainian army, which suffered heavy losses (in some units up to 90 percent) in the battles for Sieverodonetsk, are retreating towards Lysychansk,” the Defense Ministry said in Moscow.
But the city’s mayor, Oleksandr Striuk, later stated that the “street fighting” continued. Ukrainian forces attempted to restore “complete control” over the city.
8:24 a.m .: Five people are said to have been killed and 20 injured near the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on Sunday night. This was announced by the Russian news agency Tass. According to this, the Ukrainian army fired on the city, and five people died in the numerous explosions.
The information could not be checked independently, and there was initially no statement from the Ukrainian army. A fight is raging in Donetsk between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian army.
Sunday, June 5, 7:43 a.m .: According to the Ukrainian general staff, Russia fired rockets at the capital Kyiv and a suburb again in the morning. The military leadership in Kyiv announced on Sunday that military and civilian infrastructure had been hit. Kiev’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko also reported rocket attacks in his Telegram channel. The Darnyzja districts in the southeast and Dnipro in the west of the metropolis were affected. According to the current status, there is one injured person who is being treated in the hospital, but no deaths, said Klitschko.
Emergency services were therefore on the spot. According to the authorities, the suburb of Brovary, which has already been shelled several times, was also hit by rockets. The exact extent of the damage was initially unclear.
People posted pictures and videos of fires and clouds of smoke on social networks. Impact sounds could also be heard. In the morning there had been a long air alert. The residents are repeatedly asked to go to a protective bunker in this case. It was the heaviest attack on the capital region in weeks.
6:06 p.m .: According to authorities in Kyiv, Ukraine and Russia handed over the bodies of 160 soldiers to the other side. The exchange took place on June 2 along the front line in the Zaporizhia region, the Ukrainian Ministry for the Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories said in Kyiv on Saturday. Ukraine has repeatedly called on Russia to accept the dead soldiers and accused the leadership in Moscow of treating its own armed forces like “cannon fodder” and not caring about a dignified burial.
Ukrainian secret services and the General Staff of the Armed Forces as well as other security structures were involved in the exchange, it said. According to Ukrainian information, negotiations on the exchange of prisoners of war are still ongoing on both sides. Thousands of Ukrainian fighters are in Russian violence, including the defenders of Mariupol, who held out at the Azovstal steelworks there until Kyiv ceded the city in May.
5:33 p.m .: Russia has reported the withdrawal of Ukrainian soldiers from the embattled city of Sievjerodonetsk in eastern Ukraine. “Some units of the Ukrainian army, which suffered heavy casualties (in some units up to 90 percent) in the fighting for Sieverodonetsk, are withdrawing towards Lysychansk,” the Defense Ministry in Moscow said on Saturday. The statement did not reveal how many soldiers are said to have left the city. The information could not initially be independently verified.
4:28 p.m .: According to Ukrainian information, the Ukrainian armed forces have had small successes in defending the strategically important city of Sievjerodonetsk in the east of the country. Russia is throwing its “full weight and its reserves” into the battle for the city, said the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Gajday, on Saturday. However, the Ukrainian forces “are now pushing them back”. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian volunteer brigade reported the death of a German fighter in its ranks.
According to Governor Gajdaj, the Russian forces managed to occupy “most of the city”. Gajdaj said on Friday that Ukrainian forces had recaptured a fifth of the city. Sieverodonetsk is the largest city in the Luhansk region still under Ukrainian control. Fighting is going on in the city’s industrial area, and the “street fighting” in the city is continuing, the Ukrainian presidency also said. Russia wants to occupy the entire, economically important Donbass region in eastern Ukraine.
3:39 p.m .: According to Ukrainian information, a German fighter was killed in the fighting against Russian troops in Ukraine. A total of four foreign volunteers who fought on Ukraine’s side were killed, a volunteer brigade called the International Defense Legion of Ukraine said on Saturday. In addition to the German, three men from the Netherlands, France and Australia were killed.
The volunteer brigade did not provide any information on the circumstances of the death of the four foreign fighters or the location. It said only, “We lost our brothers in battle, but their bravery, memory and legacy will inspire us forever.” The statement was accompanied by photographs of the men in battle fatigues and carrying light weapons.
According to the organization, citizens of many countries are fighting on the side of Ukraine, including Denmark, Israel, Poland, Croatia and Great Britain. Shortly after the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine began, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the formation of an international brigade of volunteers at the end of February. According to Ukrainian information, around 20,000 volunteers from all over the world then volunteered. Russia this week said it had killed “hundreds” of foreign fighters in Ukraine.
11:45 a.m .: According to a recent report by British intelligence, the Russian Air Force is very active in Donbass. Accordingly, it would regularly carry out airstrikes in the region, with both targeted and untargeted attacks. Having failed in the attempted capture of Kiev, the air force is now one of the main factors in the Russian army’s progress in eastern Ukraine.
Russia has managed to acquire more air support, according to the secret service. In addition, more and more untargeted blows would cause widespread destruction. The secret service assumes “substantial collateral damage” and many civilian casualties.
11:38 a.m .: According to the Russian military, it has hit a center for training artillerymen in western weapons technology. “High-precision air-to-surface missiles struck an artillery training center of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Stetskivka area of the Sumy region,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Saturday. At the center, soldiers were taught how to use the Western M777 howitzer, he added.
Moscow has been criticizing Western arms deliveries to Ukraine for months. According to the Kremlin, the war would have ended without the armaments aid. In order to reduce this aid, the Russian leadership emphasizes the destruction of Western weapons and volunteers. Konashenkov also said on Saturday that “a camp of foreign mercenaries” had been destroyed by a rocket hit in the Odessa region in southern Ukraine.
11.15 a.m .: In the strategically important city of Sievjerodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, the defenders say they have pushed back the Russian forces somewhat. If the Russian soldiers had previously controlled “about 70 percent” of the city, “they have now been pushed back by 20 percent,” said the governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Gajday, on Friday evening. He described a brutal back and forth.
Russian forces “bomb our positions for hours, then they send in a company of freshly mobilized soldiers, they die, then they realize there are still pockets of resistance and they start bombing again,” Gajdaj said. That’s how it works in the fourth month of the Russian invasion.
8:25 a.m .: In the battle for the city of Sievjerodonetsk in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, Russia continued the attacks, according to Ukrainian information, with the help of fresh reserves. “The enemy, with artillery support, is conducting assault operations in the village of Sieverodonetsk, has strengthened its grouping with the mobile reserve of the 2nd army corps, fighting in the city is ongoing,” the Ukrainian General Staff said in its situation report on Saturday.
Russian attacks on the Ustynowka suburb were just as unsuccessful as an attempted ground offensive in the Bakhmut area, the General Staff reported. The Russian attacks are aimed at cutting off supplies and encircling the Ukrainian troops in Sieverodonetsk.
According to the Ukrainian General Staff, the Russian attacks in the direction of Sloviansk during the night were also unsuccessful. Attempts to storm were repulsed in the villages of Bogorodychne and Wirnopillja, and the Russians suffered casualties. The Sloviansk metropolitan area, with a population of about half a million before the war, is another key target of Russian attacks in Donbass. There is the headquarters of the Ukrainian defense forces in the region.
In a current situation assessment, the military experts of the American Institute for the Study of the War (ISW) announced that the Russians had assembled around 20 tactical battalions in the Izyum area for an advance on Sloviansk. However, it is unlikely that the Russian troops will make any substantial progress there in the next few days.
You can read more reports on the Ukraine conflict on the following pages.
