June 11, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine has moved here.

Ukraine’s military has recaptured Makarivka, another frontline village in the eastern Donetsk region, and has advanced on several fronts, the country’s deputy defense minister said Sunday.

“The settlements of Blahodatne and Makarivka were liberated,” the official, Hanna Maliar, said in an update on Telegram, referring to a second southeastern village that army officials had earlier claimed was back in Ukrainian hands.

A third, Neskuchne, has also been claimed Sunday by a Ukrainian army brigade, though Kyiv defense leaders have not yet commented on that territory. Russian military bloggers have also made unofficial reports that Neskuchne has been recaptured by Ukraine’s troops.

CNN cannot independently verify battlefield reports.

Elsewhere along the front lines: Maliar said “troops continue offensive actions” around the eastern city of Bakhmut, which has long served as a flashpoint in the conflict.

Kyiv’s forces were making progress around the Berkhivka reservoir northwest of the city, and on two fronts south of the city, in one case advancing as much as 1,500 meters (around a mile), according to the deputy defense minister.

Earlier Sunday, other Ukrainian officials reported similar progress to the northwest and southwest of the city.

The International Criminal Court has begun an investigation into the Nova Kakhovka dam collapse, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address Sunday.

The collapse in southern Ukraine is one of the biggest industrial and ecological disasters in Europe for decades. The catastrophe has destroyed entire villages, flooded farmland, deprived tens of thousands of people of power and clean water, and caused massive environmental damage.

“In recent days, representatives of the ICC visited Kherson region,” Zelensky said. “On the very first day after the disaster, the prosecutor general sent a request to the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC to investigate the disaster, and the work has already begun.” 

Key context: Kyiv and Moscow each blame the other for causing the dam breach, although it is unclear whether the dam was deliberately attacked at all, or if the collapse was the result of structural failure.

Russia and Ukraine have also accused one another of shelling during the effort to evacuate civilians from areas they control — sometimes with deadly consequences.

More from Zelensky: The Ukrainian president said his government is facilitating the ICC investigation by providing “full access to the affected areas, to witnesses, to all information and evidence.” 

Zelensky also said his government has helped evacuate 4,000 people from flooded areas in southern Ukraine, “with the worst situation still in the temporarily occupied part of Kherson region.”

Russian state news agency TASS, meanwhile, reported that Russian Emergency Services have evacuated about 7,000 people from areas it controls.

At least 14 people have died in the flooding, Ukrainian officials said earlier Sunday.

CNN’s Ivana Kottasová and Gianluca Mezzofiore contributed to this report.

Ukrainian prisoners of war are seen after a swap in Ukraine in this photo, released June 11.

Russia and Ukraine exchanged almost 200 prisoners of war Sunday, according to statements from officials in Moscow and Kyiv.

Ninety-four Russian service members were returned to their homeland in the swap, the Russian Ministry of Defense said, adding the fighters would be taken to medical facilities before being allowed to go back to their families.

Ukraine’s 95 returnees included POWs captured at infamous sites from the war — Snake Island and the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol — among a number of different locations, according to Andrii Yermak, from the Ukrainian president’s office.

Some of the Ukrainian POWs had been held by the Wagner mercenary group, according to an official from Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters on the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

A flooded neighborhood in Kherson is pictured June 10.

At least 14 people have died and more than 2,700 have been evacuated from flooded areas in southern Ukraine after the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam, Ukrainian officials reported on Sunday. 

One hundred ninety children are among the evacuees, said Ihor Klymenko, Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs.

In Ukrainian-controlled flooded areas in the Kherson region, Klymenko said five people have died and 35 people are missing, including seven children. He also said one person has died in the Mykolaiv region.

In the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, which lies upstream of the shattered dam, almost 162,000 people were without water, he added. 

In Russian-occupied flooded territory, at least eight people have died in the town of Oleshky, Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson region military administration, told Ukrainian media Sunday.

Prokudin accused Russian-installed authorities of obstructing the evacuation from the east bank of the river, “by setting up checkpoints and not letting people out.” He said only people who had switched to Russian passports were being allowed through.

According to the Kherson regional military administration, shelling by Russian forces also continues despite the evacuation efforts.  

Key context: Ukraine controls the west bank of the Dnipro River and the city of Kherson after its counteroffensive last year, while Russian troops remain on the east bank in the greater Kherson region.

Both Russia and Ukraine have accused one another of shelling during the effort to evacuate civilians from areas they control.

Kyiv and Moscow have also blamed one another for causing the breach in the first place, although it is unclear whether the dam was deliberately attacked, or whether the collapse was the result of structural failure.

A Ukrainian brigade posted a video of soldiers celebrating in southeastern Ukraine Sunday, saying they were hailing the recapture of the village of Neskuchne from Russian forces.

The video, which has been geolocated by CNN, shows ten men from Ukraine’s 129th Brigade standing around their battalion flag outside a small medical facility in the village. 

“Glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes,” they shout.

The video, which was posted to the battalion’s Facebook page, is accompanied by a statement saying the village was recaptured Saturday.

Keep in mind: CNN cannot independently verify battlefield reports, and Ukraine has yet to officially claim the successful recapture of Neskuchne, which lies immediately south of the town of Velyka Novosilka on the front lines between Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk.

But Ukrainian army officials have said that they took back the neighboring village of Blahodatne, and Russian military bloggers have been reporting since Saturday night that both villages fell to Ukrainian forces.

The reported capture of these two small territories comes a day after President Volodymyr Zelensky gave his clearest indication yet that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is underway.

Zelensky and his commanders have provided few details on the extent of the assault launched thus far.

Rail traffic in Crimea was suspended for a few hours Sunday after a line in the east of the Russian-annexed peninsula was damaged, according to the territory’s Russian-installed head Sergiy Aksenov.

Aksenov did not give any details on what caused the damage but did say there were no casualties. Unconfirmed local reports said there was an explosion. 

Some context: Rail lines in Crimea are key to supplying Russia’s war effort and have been targeted on several occasions by Ukraine, most recently a week ago in an attempted drone strike on the railway junction at Dzhankoi.

Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014, in a move denounced by Ukraine and a range of allies and international bodies as illegal.

Ukrainian soldiers raise a Ukrainian flag, during an operation that claims to liberate the village of Blahodatne, in this screengrab taken from a handout video released on June 11.

The Ukrainian army claims its soldiers have regained control of the village of Blahodatne, located along the front line between Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk in southeastern Ukraine.

A video released by the official Telegram channel of the Ukrainian Ground Forces showed soldiers of the 68th Brigade hoisting the Ukrainian flag from a building in the village, which lies a few kilometers south of the town of Velyka Novosilka.

The brigade launched an initial assault on the village club building and local school, an army spokesperson told Ukrainian television.

Russian forces did not surrender when offered to do so, the spokesperson said, leading to what he called a “clean up” of the club building. Six Russians were captured as Ukraine took control of the village.

CNN cannot independently verify battlefield reports in Ukraine.

Unofficial Russian reports: The army’s claim seems to align with unofficial snippets published by Russian journalists and propagandists this weekend, which have suggested Kyiv’s forces are making some gains in southeastern Ukraine.

The Rybar Telegram channel — one in a network of Russian pro-war military blogs that publish updates on Moscow’s invasion — reported Ukrainian forces had regained control of two villages south of Velyka Novosilka “almost without a fight.”

Rybar named Blahodatne, the town claimed by Ukraine’s army, as one of those two villages. The other was nearby Neskuchne.

The Russian ship Priazovye was attacked by six unmanned Ukrainian boats in the southeastern part of the Black Sea on Sunday, Russia’s defense ministry said in a statement. 

The ship was not damaged and the drone boats were destroyed, according to the ministry. 

Video published on the ministry’s Telegram channel purports to show the ship’s crew firing and hitting the approaching unmanned boats, as explosions are seen in the distance. 

CNN is not able to independently verify the ministry’s claims or the authenticity of the video. 

A statement from the Russian Ministry of Defense said Priazovye was “monitoring the situation and ensuring security on the routes of the Turkish Stream and Blue Stream gas pipeline” when it was attacked by “six uncrewed surface vessels.”

“In the course of repulsing the attack, all the boats were destroyed by fire from the Russian ship’s regular weapons 300 kilometers (about 186 miles) southeast of Sevastopol,” the ministry said, adding there were no casualties. 

A similar incident took place on May 24, when Moscow claims three Ukrainian unmanned boats tried to attack the Russian ship Ivan Khurs, which was also monitoring the pipeline and Turkish route, according to Russian state news agency TASS. 

The drones were, likewise, destroyed by the ship’s standard weapons, according to TASS. 

Three people were killed and ten others injured when Russian shelling hit an evacuation boat in southern Ukraine, according to a regional official.

The group was evacuating the flooded area on the east bank of the Dnipro River following the recent Nova Kakhovka dam collapse, Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson region military administration, said in a Telegram post Sunday. 

The three people killed were civilians, and there were two law enforcement officers among the ten people wounded, according to the official.

CNN cannot independently verify the details of the attack.

Some background: The collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine is one of the biggest industrial and ecological disasters in Europe for decades.

Ukraine controls the west bank of the Dnipro River and the city of Kherson after its counteroffensive last year, while Russian troops remain on the east bank in the larger Kherson region.

Both Russia and Ukraine have accused one another of shelling during the effort to evacuate civilians from areas they control.

Kyiv and Moscow have also blamed one another for causing the breach in the first place, although it is unclear whether the dam was deliberately attacked, or whether the collapse was the result of structural failure.

Kyiv’s forces have been counterattacking around the eastern city of Bakhmut for a week, a Ukrainian army spokesperson tells CNN, but the official downplayed its importance, saying it is “not a major offensive.”

He said Russian forces continue their shelling toward Ukrainian positions, but said Ukraine’s forces have advanced up to 2 kilometers (about 1.25 miles) in places.

Russia’s presence in Bakhmut is maintained by airborne troops, with support from infantry personnel and mercenaries from several smaller private military companies, Cherevatyi said.

Latest from Bakhmut: Despite Wagner claiming victory in the eastern city and handing their positions off to Russian forces, Bakhmut remains a flashpoint.

While Moscow’s troops continue to hold the city, Ukraine’s forces have concentrated their efforts on areas to the northwest and southwest. Kyiv’s troops reported Saturday that they had advanced nearly a mile in different areas around the city.

CNN cannot independently verify battlefield reports, including Cherevatyi’s comments on recent counterattacks.

For the third weekend in a row, Ukraine’s government has released a slick video clearly nodding toward, though not explicitly referencing, the military’s summer counteroffensive against Russia’s occupying forces. 

In the latest offering, the head of military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, sits silently behind his desk staring into the camera. 

After 20 seconds the words, “More to Come” appear, followed by “Plans Love Silence.”

The latter slogan has become a theme of government communications since a video with the same wording appeared last weekend. In that production, soldiers were seen with their fingers to their lips urging silence.

Two weekends ago, a very different sort of clip was released featuring soldiers apparently training at dawn, using an array of Western-supplied equipment like Leopard tanks.

The message of that video, posted by the armed forces’ commander in chief, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, and driven home by a heavy percussion underlay, was: “The Time Has Come to Take Back What Is Ours.”

With a few words, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky gave his strongest signal yet that his forces have begun their much-anticipated campaign to regain swathes of territory taken by Russian forces.

The president said “relevant counteroffensive defensive actions are taking place in Ukraine” but remained tight-lipped about the details.

A day later, a Ukrainian army spokesperson and unofficial Russian reports indicated Kyiv’s forces had made some gains in the southeast and recaptured at least one frontline village.

The conflict appears to be entering a new stage, and one which may decide its ultimate outcome. Here are some of the factors at play:

Read more about this here.

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin arrives at a funeral in Moscow, Russia, on April 8.

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said Sunday he won’t sign any contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense, after the ministry announced Saturday that “volunteer units” and private military groups like Wagner will be required to sign a contract with the ministry by July 1, “in order to increase the efficiency of their use.”

“The orders and decrees issued by (Defense Minister Sergei) Shoigu apply to employees of the Ministry of Defense and military personnel. PMC ‘Wagner’ will not sign any contracts with Shoigu,” Prigozhin said in a Telegram post.

However, Wagner would “absolutely” pursue “the interests of the Russian Federation and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief,” Prigozhin said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement Saturday, quoting a decree signed by Shoigu, that such contracts would “give the voluntary formations the necessary legal status,” and create “unified approaches” to their work and “the fulfillment of their tasks.”

Some key context: Prigozhin has frequently criticized Russia’s traditional military hierarchy as he sought to win a power struggle against military commanders to lead the ground effort in eastern Ukraine for Russian President Vladmir Putin — with whom he remains closely allied.

Earlier this month he blamed Russian defense chiefs for “tens of thousands” of Wagner casualties because they didn’t have enough ammunition.

Prigozhin is often known to speak sarcastically, and at times has reversed on comments he has made in strongly worded public remarks.

The Ukrainian Air Force says it shot down six Iranian-made drones launched by Russia overnight at the Kharkiv and Sumy regions in northeastern Ukraine.

The attacks targeted frontline areas in the regions, the military branch said in a post on its official Telegram account Sunday.

Ukrainian defenses managed to destroy six Iranian-made Shahed-136/131 attack drones, the Air Force said, noting their data is still preliminary.

In Kharkiv: At about 1:50 a.m. local time Sunday (6:50 p.m. ET Saturday), Russian forces struck a building in the city of Bohodukhiv using three Shahed drones, causing a fire to break out, the head of the Kharkiv military administration, Oleh Syniehubov, said in a Telegram post.

Russian forces have also fired twice in the past 24 hours at the main ammonia pipeline in the city of Kupyansk, according to Syniehubov, who said it did not cause an ammonia leakage or pose a threat to civilians.

In Sumy: Russian forces carried out ten attacks on Sunday, according to the region’s military administration, which said in a Telegram post that it had observed 169 explosions.

Four Shahed drones attacked the town of Bilopillia, hitting an administrative building, a school building, and production facilities, according to the Sumy authorities.

Ukrainian soldiers stand in front of a building with a Ukrainian flag, during an operation that claims to liberate the village of Blahodatne, in this screengrab taken from a handout video released on June 11.

There are few reports from the battlefields between the southern Zaporizhzhia region and Donetsk in the east Sunday morning, but snippets from Russian journalists and propagandists suggest further Ukrainian advances.

The reports come via a network of Russian pro-war military blogs and social media accounts that publish updates on Moscow’s invasion.

The Rybar Telegram channel said Ukraine has regained control of two villages in the western part of Donetsk region, Neskuchne and Blahodatne. The villages, just south of the town of Velyka Novosilka, came “almost without a fight,” Rybar claimed.

The Wargonzo Telegram channel also reported “certain tactical successes” in that area.

A couple miles further south, Rybar reports fighting around the village of Urozhaine.

Further west, there were consistent reports of very heavy Ukrainian artillery fire Saturday toward Russian positions south of Orikhiv, a battered southern town where Ukrainian forces have also stepped up activities over the last week.

Keep in mind: CNN is unable to independently verify battlefield reports.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense had not issued any detailed statements Sunday on the latest fighting, while Ukraine’s latest General Staff report said only that Russian forces in the area were carrying out defensive operations.

More background: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave his clearest indication yet on Saturday that Ukraine’s long-awaited push to liberate territory still held by Russia’s occupying forces is underway, saying “relevant counteroffensive defensive actions are taking place in Ukraine.”

Pushes along the front between Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk are consistent with what is seen as a primary objective for Ukraine, which is to break the Russian “land bridge” to Crimea, by regaining control of the coastline of the Sea of Azov.

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and has held it since.

Two drones crashed in the Russian region of Kaluga, which borders the Moscow region to the north, local governor Vladislav Shapsha said, adding there were no casualties.

Two drones fell in the same region earlier in the week, crashing onto a highway.

Officials in western Russia have reported more Ukrainian drone attacks and shelling in recent weeks as the war spreads beyond Ukraine’s borders.

Kyiv has not commented on the claims.

Late last month, Russia blamed Ukraine for launching a drone attack on Moscow which left two people injured and several buildings damaged.

An aerial view shows a flooded area in Kherson on Saturday.

Floodwaters are receding following the collapse of the Kakhovka dam, but debris washed along the Dnipro river is turning Odesa’s Black Sea coastline into “a garbage dump and animal cemetery,” according to Ukrainian authorities.

“A lot of mines, ammunition and other explosive objects are being carried into the sea and thrown onto the shoreline,” Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs said on its website at the weekend, adding that border guards had observed a “plague of fish” in the area.

“The Dnipro river flows into the Black Sea, bearing many signs of the devastation caused by Russians,” the ministry said.

“The consequences of ecocide are terrible,” it added.

The collapse of the dam in southern Ukraine on June 6 is one of the biggest industrial and ecological disasters in Europe for decades.

The catastrophe has destroyed entire villages, flooded farmland, deprived tens of thousands of people of power and clean water, and caused massive environmental damage.

But it’s still impossible to say whether it collapsed because it was deliberately targeted as part of Russia’s war in Ukraine or whether the breach could have been caused by structural failure.

Several Western officials have blamed the collapse of the Russian-occupied dam on Moscow.

Read the full story here.

A view shows an apartment building damaged during a Russian drone strike in Odesa on Saturday.

Odesa’s mayor has declared a day of mourning after Friday’s aerial attack that left three people dead and more than two dozen wounded in the southern Ukrainian port city, according to officials.

Russia carried out the overnight attack using Iranian-made Shahed drones, said Oleh Kiper, the head of the Odesa region’s military administration.

Air defense forces destroyed all the drones, but wreckage hit a nine-story apartment building in the Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi district, and the blast wave damaged other residential buildings, according to Kiper and other local officials.

Three people were ultimately killed and 26 others were wounded — including three children, Kiper said.

“All were provided with medical aid; three remain in serious condition,” he added.

Odesa’s city municipality said in a statement that a total of 290 apartments in 11 buildings were damaged as a result of the drone attack.

Zelensky and Trudeau attend a in Kyiv on Saturday.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced during a visit to Kyiv Saturday that Canada will be part of multinational efforts to train Ukraine’s fighter pilots.

During a joint news conference with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trudeau said the country will help “maintain and support Ukraine’s fighter jet program, leveraging Canadian expertise in these areas.”

Trudeau also announced that Canada will contribute to an initiative for the maintenance of Leopard battle tanks that Ukraine’s allies have provided to Kyiv.    

“We will provide an additional 287 AIM-7 missiles, which will support Ukraine in its efforts to defend Ukrainian skies,” he added, referring to a type of medium-range air-to-air missile. “And from existing funds, we will provide 10,000 rounds of 105-millimeter ammunition to the Ukraine security forces.”

Trudeau said an additional $500 million is being allocated as military funding. 

On the dam collapse: The Canadian prime minister also commented on the disastrous flooding following a break in southern Ukraine’s Nova Kakhovka dam.  

As CNN has previously reported, it’s not currently possible to say whether the dam collapsed because it was deliberately targeted or if the breach could have been caused by structural failure. Kyiv and Moscow have each accused the other of causing the collapse.

“Russia’s war in Ukraine has devastated infrastructure, has destroyed families and taken lives, and is causing economic, food, energy shortages around the world. Russia is responsible and will be held to account,” Trudeau said. 

He also announced the provision of $10 million Canadian (around $7.46 million USD) to help flooding victims.

On NATO: During their meeting in Kyiv on Saturday, the two leaders also adopted a declaration in which Canada supports Ukraine’s accession to NATO as soon as circumstances allow.

“Canada supports Ukraine to become a NATO member as soon as conditions allow for it. Ukraine and Canada look forward to addressing these issues at the NATO Summit in Vilnius in July 2023,” according to the text of the declaration.

Zelensky has previously said he understands his country cannot become a member of NATO while it is still at war.