KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that counteroffensive and defensive actions are underway against Russian forces, insisting that his top commanders are in a “positive” frame of mind as their troops are engaged in heavy fighting on the front line.
The Ukrainian leader, at a news conference in Kyiv with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, responded to a question about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comment the day before that Ukraine’s counteroffensive had begun — and that Ukrainian forces were suffering “heavy losses.”
Zelenskyy said that “counter-offensive, defensive actions are taking place in Ukraine. I will not speak about what stage or stage they are in.”
Top Ukrainian authorities have stopped short of announcing a full-scale counteroffensive is under way, though some Western analysts say intensified fighting and the reported use of army reserves suggest it is .
“I am in contact with our commanders of different directions every day,” he added, mentioning the names of five top Ukrainian military leaders. “Everything is positive. Pass it on to Putin.”
Trudeau, the first foreign leader to visit Ukraine since devastating floods caused by a breach in a Dnieper River dam, offered monetary, military and moral support. He pledged 500 million Canadian dollars ($375 million) in new military aid, on top of the more than 8 billion Canadian dollars ($6 billion) Canada has already given since the war began in February 2022, and announced 10 million dollars of Canada ($7.5 million ) for humanitarian assistance for flood response.
Trudeau said the dam collapse was “a direct consequence of Russia’s war,” but he did not directly blame Moscow.
Ukraine’s General Staff said on Saturday that “heavy fighting” was continuing, with 34 clashes in the previous day in the country’s industrial east. It did not give details but said Russian forces were “defending themselves” and launching air and artillery strikes in Ukraine’s southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
The recent Western injection of billions of dollars worth of military equipment — some of it high-tech and top-of-the-line — into Ukraine has raised expectations about when it will be used, and what the effect against Russian dug-in lines. .
For months, Ukrainian commanders in the eastern city of Bakhmut — largely devastated by a month-long battle that has become one of the bloodiest battles of the war — have used the language of counter-offensive and defensive operations to describe the activity there.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said on Friday that the center of the conflict was in the east, specifically in the Donetsk region, and cited “heavy fighting” in Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Marinka.
Valerii Shershen, a spokesman for Ukraine’s armed forces in Zaporizhzhia, told Radio Liberty that they were looking for weaknesses in Russia’s defense in that region, in the west.
Ukraine’s nuclear energy agency Energoatom said the last operating reactor at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, had been put into “cold shutdown” mode. That’s a process where all the control rods are inserted into the reactor core to stop the nuclear fission reaction and build up of heat and pressure.
The plant’s other five reactors are in cold shutdown amid concerns about the plant’s exposure to combat.
Energoatom said in a statement on Friday that there was “no direct threat” to the Zaporizhzhia plant due to the breach of the Kakhovka dam downstream of the Dnieper River, which forced thousands of people to flee. flooding and also reducing water levels in a reservoir used to help cool the facility.
Water levels in the Kakhovka reservoir, which feeds the Zaporizhzhia plant, remained stable on Saturday, Energoatom said.
The site’s power units have been out of service since September last year. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency is due to visit Ukraine in the coming days.
Ukrainian authorities reported on Saturday that at least six civilians were killed across the country as Russian forces launched Iranian-made Shahed drones, missiles, and artillery and mortar strikes.
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service reported that three people were killed and more than two dozen wounded overnight in an attack targeting the Black Sea port of Odesa. A spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern operational command, Natalia Humeniuk, said two children and a pregnant woman were among the injured.
Two people were killed in a Russian attack on the town of Orekhova in the Zaporizhzhia region, according to governor Yuriy Malashko.
In northeastern Ukraine, a 29-year-old man was killed when more than 10 drones targeted the Kharkiv region, its governor Oleh Syniehubov reported on Saturday. He added that at least three other civilians were injured.
The Ukrainian air force said that during the night, it shot down 20 of 35 Shahed drones and two of eight missiles “of various types” launched by Russian forces.
The fighting and civilian casualties have been in the spotlight again as authorities in southern Ukraine say water levels are dropping in a wide area below a burst dam.
Almost one-third of the protected natural areas in the Kherson region could be wiped out by flooding following the breach of the Kakhovka dam, the Ukrainian environment minister warned on Saturday.
The UN’s humanitarian aid chief, Martin Griffiths, said in an Associated Press interview on Friday that an “extraordinary” 700,000 people need drinking water.
In other developments:
On Saturday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he wanted to resume talks with Putin — whose order for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been criticized by many Western leaders — and planned to do so again “as soon as possible.” .” Scholz has spoken on the phone with Putin several times since the invasion.
The chancellor said the basis for a “just peace” between Russia and Ukraine is the withdrawal of Russian troops. “That has to be understood,” he said.
The UK government said it would provide 16 million pounds ($20 million) in humanitarian aid to those affected by the flooding. Much of the money is channeled through international organizations such as the Red Cross and the United Nations, and the UK is also sending boats, community water filters, water pumps and waders to Ukraine.
The UK has given Ukraine 1.5 billion pounds in economic and humanitarian support since the war began, the government said, and committed 4.6 billion pounds in military aid.
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Jon Gambrell in Kyiv, Joanna Kozlowska and Jill Lawless in London, and Frank Jordans in Bonn, Germany, contributed to this story.
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