Russia says its forces have repelled a multipronged "large-scale" Ukrainian offensive in the eastern Donetsk region, but Kyiv rejected the report, calling it an attempt at disinformation while denying it had launched its long-awaited counterattack to reclaim territory lost since Moscow invaded in February 2022.
Kyiv did say on June 5, however, that its forces were “shifting to offensive actions” in some areas and conducting small-scale armored operations.
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The Russian claim, which came after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told The Wall Street Journal two days earlier that Ukrainian forces were ready for the counteroffensive, could not be independently verified and was rejected by the Ukrainian military.
"In order to demoralize Ukrainians and mislead the public, including their own, Russian propagandists are spreading false information about a counteroffensive, its directions, and the losses of the Ukrainian Army, even though there is no counterattack," the Ukrainian military said in a statement.
It said that Russia used old videos and pictures "as well as other fake materials" in its report about the alleged counteroffensive, in which Russian officials said Ukraine suffered heavy losses.
Earlier on June 5, the Russian Defense Ministry released a video statement saying that Ukrainian forces attacked five points in Donetsk using six mechanized and two tank battalions but their action "had no success."
The statement said that the chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov, personally supervised the Russian defense.
General Oleksandr Syrskiy, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said on June 5 that Ukrainian forces kept advancing near Bakhmut, the city that has been at the epicenter of the monthslong battle for control of Ukraine's Donetsk region. But he made no mention of a counteroffensive.
SEE ALSO: Has Ukraine's Long-Awaited Counteroffensive Finally Begun? Maybe.Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said that "in some sectors, we are conducting offensive actions…. We are advancing there on a rather wide front. We are having some success."
The comments about Ukrainian gains in the Bakhmut area was confirmed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the chief of Russia's Wagner Group, whose mercenaries were at the forefront of the monthslong battle for the devastated city.
Wagner fighters claimed they had captured Bakhmut last month and handed it to regular Russian forces.
But in an audio message posted by Wagner's media arm, a voice purported to be Prigozhin's said that a village just northwest of Bakhmut has now been retaken by Ukrainian forces.
"Now part of the settlement of Berkhivka has already been lost, the troops are quietly running away. Disgrace!" the voice attributed to Prigozhin said.
In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy on June 5 praised Ukrainian troops for making gains near Bakhmut.
"Well done, warriors! We see how hysterically Russia reacts to any step we take there, all positions we take. The enemy knows that Ukraine will win," Zelenskiy said.
For its part, the Ukrainian military said on June 5 that its forces had detected and repelled an attempt by Russia to infiltrate a "sabotage and reconnaissance" group in the eastern Kharkiv region.
"On the Siverskiy and Slobozhanskiy directions over the past day, the enemy made an unsuccessful attempt to penetrate the state border of Ukraine in the area of the Zelene settlement of the Kharkiv region," the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported in a message early on June 5.
The Kharkiv Region borders Russia's Belgorod region, where fighting was reported repeatedly in recent days.
For months, Ukrainian officials have spoken about preparing a counteroffensive to drive Russian forces back.
Zelenskiy told the WSJ in his interview that his country was ready to launch the action, saying, "I don't know how long it will take," and admitting that it could come at a heavy cost.
WATCH: A 63-year-old Ukrainian soldier with the call sign "Granddad" is fighting to defend his ancestral Cossack homeland in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya region.
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Ukrainian 'Granddad' Defending Ancestral Cossack Homeland
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on June 5 told Reuters that Ukraine has as enough weapons to launch its counteroffensive against Russia and that the operation will lead to victory, but he declined to say if the counteroffensive had begun.
Western assessments have said the offensive will be larger and more complicated than any other effort Ukraine has conducted since the launch of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022.
Ukraine’s newest units, plus all of its regular and irregular units, will go into their offensive with more than $32 billion in weapons and security assistance from U.S. arsenals, plus billions more from European allies.
Russia, meanwhile, has been digging in and expanding its defensive lines -- minefields, trenches, anti-tank “dragon’s teeth” -- across the roughly 1,200-kilometer front that stretches from Ukraine’s Luhansk region, in the Donbas, southwest to the mouth of the Dnieper River and its eastern banks in the Kherson region.
Inside Russia, anti-Kremlin Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) fighters late on June 5 claimed to have captured Novaya Tavolzhanka -- a town of about 5,000 people -- in the Belgorod region.
The claim could not be independently verified.
Based in Ukraine, the RVC and another group, the Free Russia Legion, have made stunning cross-border incursions in recent weeks, attacking Russian forces in towns and villages in the Belgorod region. Ukraine has denied it is behind the attacks.