Ukraine claims first gain, albeit slight, in counter-offensive

After a week of largely silence about the newly launched campaign to expel Russian occupation forces from Ukrainian territory, the Ukrainian army claimed its first small gains on Sunday as fighting raged in at least three sectors of the front.

The military operation is expected to be extensive, but at the moment it appears to consist mainly of probing attacks and feints.

At least three of them would have paid off.

68th Brigade of Ukraine posted video on Facebook of his soldiers raising the country’s blue and yellow flag over the village of Blahodatne, in the eastern region of Donetsk. A deputy defense minister said Ukrainian forces had also captured the nearby village of Makarivka, and the Ukrainian Volunteer Army said it had recaptured a neighboring settlement, Neskuchne.

“We drive the enemy from our homeland,” says an unidentified soldier in the video. “It is the most pleasant feeling. Ukraine will prevail.”

The claims could not immediately be independently verified, and despite their defiant tone, they were made in light of Ukraine’s undeniable losses of both troops and equipment over the past week as the counter-offensive began to take shape.

It was also not clear whether the villages were outside the front lines of Russian defenses – meaning it remains to be seen whether the announcements indicated Ukraine had managed to break through them.

But after months of speculation, one thing seemed clear this weekend: the long-anticipated Ukrainian counter-offensive is underway, if not complete. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this on Saturday during a surprise visit by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “At what stage I will not disclose in detail,” said Mr. Zelensky.

Limited as it is at the moment, the attack was fierce and the fighting concentrated along the front in the south and east. The Ukrainians, equipped with newly purchased tanks and armored vehicles, are trying to both retake ground and convince their Western allies that their fight is still worth supporting.

In recent days, Ukrainian missiles and artillery have hit four Russian command centers, six concentration areas of personnel, weapons and military equipment, three ammunition depots and five enemy artillery units, the Ukrainian military said. The claims could not be independently verified.

But any gains Ukraine makes against entrenched Russian forces are likely to be costly and cause many casualties on the Ukrainian side.

In 15 months of war, the Ukrainian military has largely refrained from discussing its own casualty and loss count, but evidence suggests renewed fighting hasn’t been easy.

US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed Ukrainian troops had suffered losses over the past week, as had the Russians, but would not quantify the casualties. At least three German-made Leopard 2 tanks and eight US-made Bradley fighting vehicles have recently been abandoned by Ukrainian forces or destroyed, according to videos and photos posted by pro-war Russian bloggers and verified by The New York Times.

According to Valeriy Shershen, a spokesman for the Ukrainian army in the Donetsk region, the attack on Blahodatne initially stalled on the outskirts of the village. Russian troops fired from the village school and a cultural club, he said, preventing any advance.

Then the Ukrainian strike group attacked both buildings at the same time, entered the cultural club by blowing a hole in a wall and climbed inside to fight room to room, Mr. Shershen said. His account could not be independently confirmed, but video released by Ukraine shows soldiers hanging a flag from a window on the top floor of what appears to be a partially destroyed school. The New York Times has not independently verified the video.

There was no comment from Russia’s defense ministry, which claimed it repelled Ukrainian attacks in the first week of fighting.

But the Ukrainian Volunteer Army’s claim on Sunday that it had recaptured Neskuchne a day earlier came shortly after an influential Russian military commentator, Igor Girkin, said on social media that Russian troops had withdrawn from the village.

The three settlements that Ukraine claimed to have taken are spread over about five kilometers. Further advances south from the area could sever rail and road links between Russia and the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, a target of the counter-offensive.

In Russia, tensions were visible on Sunday between two arms of the military offensive against Ukraine. The leader of the private military company Wagner, who has openly criticized Russian military leaders, issued a statement that his group would not comply with an order to sign a formal contract with the defense ministry before July 1.

The flat refusal was just the latest flashpoint in a long-running feud between the Wagner leader, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, and Defense Secretary Sergei K. Shoigu that has cast a spotlight on divisions and infighting over the prosecution of the war.

Even while rejecting Mr. Shoigu, Mr. Prigozhin made it clear that he remained loyal to President Vladimir V. Putin. “Wagner is absolutely completely subservient to the interests of the Russian Federation and the Supreme Commander,” he wrote.

Maria Varenikova And Paul Son reporting contributed.