UKRaine Military Reports Advance in the South, says ‘biggest strike still ahead’; UKR Downs RUssian Drones But Some Get Through Due to Gaps in Air Protection; UKR’s Armed Forces Strike 17 RU Artillery Units and an Air Defence System; UKR Says It Successfully Deploys 1,000 km Drone, LIVE UPDATES and MORE

By admin On Jun 23, 2023

Ukraine war latest: Military reports advance in the south, says ‘biggest strike still ahead’:

Ukrainian forces are advancing on the southern front line as the summer counteroffensive continues, the military said on June 20.

Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, the Tavria military sector commander, reported that Russian forces had lost up to five companies of killed and wounded troops in action and 46 units of hardware over the past day in that sector.

Tarnavskyi didn’t give the exact number of Russian soldiers killed and wounded. However, the size of the Russian army’s company ranges from 30 to 150 troops, depending on the branch.

Ukraine has been conducting an intensive military campaign in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts since June 8, having had limited success so far, with eight settlements reclaimed from Russian control.

It is “quite difficult” for Ukrainian forces to advance, as the Russian troops “have thrown all their forces to stop the offensive,” Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said.

“The ongoing operation has several tasks, and the military fulfills them. They are moving as they should have been moving. The biggest strike is still ahead,” Maliar said in a Telegram post, adding that the “fierce fighting is ongoing.”

As Ukrainian forces advance south in several directions, Russian troops are concentrating their efforts in the east and continue assaulting the area, aiming to occupy the entire easternmost Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, according to Maliar. —>READ MORE HERE

Ukraine downs Russian drones but some get through due to gaps in air protection:

Ukrainian air defenses downed 32 of 35 Shahed exploding drones Russia launched early Tuesday, most of them in the Kyiv region, officials said, in a bombardment that exposed gaps in the country’s air protection after almost 16 months of war.

Russian forces mostly targeted the region around the Ukrainian capital in a nighttime drone attack lasting around three hours, officials said, with Ukrainian air defenses shooting down about a dozen of them.

The attack was part of a wider bombardment of Ukrainian regions that extended as far as the Lviv region in the west of the country, near Poland.

The Shahed drones made it all the way to Lviv because of the inability of air defense assets to cover such a broad area, Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said.

Air defense systems are mostly dedicated to protecting major cities, key infrastructure facilities, including nuclear power plants, and the front line, he said.

“There is a general lack of air defense assets to cover a country like Ukraine,” according to Lviv Gov. Maksym Kozytskyi.

Russia also struck the southern Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine with ballistic missiles.

Ukraine’s air defenses have been reinforced with sophisticated weapons from its Western allies, increasing the success rate at knocking down incoming drones and missiles.