Southern front continues to align to gain foothold – Deputy Defence Minister

The alignment of fronts in Ukraine's south continues, which means that a foothold is being gained on the necessary borders.

Source: Hanna Maliar, Deputy Defence Minister on air during the national joint 24/7 newscast  

Quote: "In the east, we're confidently moving along the flanks around Bakhmut. We didn't enter the city itself. We now control the southwestern outskirts of the town. But the main battles are all around. There is an offensive in several directions. This is progress in all the directions in which we are moving. At the same time, Russia brought in many forces there. 

In the south, we are moving with varying success: somewhere, it's more than a kilometre, somewhere it's less than that, and other places, up to two kilometres – in different ways. Generally speaking, we are aligning the front to gain a foothold on the necessary lines."

Details: Maliar added that the struggle continues at the front for which side will hold the initiative. She said that both in the east and in the south, Ukraine has seized the initiative and is advancing on all fronts. At the same time, she added that this is an operational initiative. 

Quote: "The most important task is to destroy the Russian forces. Imagine: every day, command posts, equipment, tanks, helicopters, and places of compact accumulation of military personnel are destroyed – if all this were not destroyed, it would be turned against us. 

So when we seize the initiative, it doesn't mean that we are just moving forward. This means we have brought down so many Russian forces that they can no longer stop this initiative.

Only the military can evaluate this. According to them, everything is moving according to plan."

Background: The Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff reported this morning (30 June) that Ukrainian troops had had partial success and were gaining ground in several areas in Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions.

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