Ukrainian forces in the south are gradually making advances -- “with small steps, but very confidently” -- as Ukrainian troops continue the counteroffensive according to plan, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said in an assessment late on June 20.
"We are moving forward gradually…and you can even cite an allegory that we are gnawing away every meter of land from the enemy,” Malyar said.
At the same time, there are places where Russian forces are advancing and Ukrainian troops are on the defensive -- in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Kupyansk and Lyman, for example, Malyar wrote on Telegram.
She added that "people want it to be like in a movie…very fast,” but it won't be that way.
"We must understand that the tasks that are set before the military are carried out by them, and gradual movement is taking place in all directions where the offensive began. But, of course, the main blow is yet to come," she said.
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President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address that Ukrainian forces "in the south and east are actively destroying the enemy, physically cleansing Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s defenders are “destroying terrorists,” he said. “And it is a guarantee that the state of evil will never have the opportunity to bring evil to Ukraine."
The commander of Ukraine's ground forces, General Oleksandr Syrskiy, said on Telegram that his troops were making progress on the flanks of the eastern city of Bakhmut while repelling increasingly intense Russian attacks near Kupyansk.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces reported earlier that the Ukrainian military continues its offensive in the Melitopol and Berdyansk areas.
In northeastern Ukraine, Russian troops shelled the border of the Sumy region 14 times, the regional military administration reported.
Several communities came under fire from mortars and artillery, and 109 explosions were recorded, a summary from the military administration said. Private houses and a farm building were hit.
Russia's Defense Ministry said on June 20 that Russian forces hit and destroyed eight ammunition warehouses across Ukraine in the previous 24 hours. It said Ukrainian forces had tried to attack the Russian-held eastern city of Donetsk and the southern Zaporizhzhya region, but the attacks had been repelled.
Ukrainian forces also struck the Russian-controlled town of Nova Kakhovka in the southern Kherson region with drones, killing a women and wounding four civilians, local Russian-appointed authorities said.
RFE/RL cannot confirm reports of battlefield developments by either side in areas of the heaviest fighting.
Russia earlier on June 20 launched another large-scale missile, drone, and artillery attack on Kyiv and several other Ukrainian cities, killing at least two people, regional authorities and the military said.
The air defenses of the Ukrainian capital repelled a "massive" Russian drone attack overnight, destroying about 20 Iranian-made drones, Serhiy Popko, the governor of the Kyiv region, said on Telegram, adding that the attack was the first on Kyiv in the last 18 days.
Ukraine's air defense said that it had shot down 32 out of a total of 35 Iranian-made drones.
The Zaporizhzhya and Lviv regions were also targeted by Russian strikes overnight.
In Zaporizhzhya, the attack targeted communications and housing developments as well as farming enterprises, regional military administration chief Yuriy Malashko said.
A critical infrastructure target was also hit in Lviv, regional Governor Maksym Kozytskiy said.
The latest wave of attacks came after the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said that, as of June 18, 9,083 Ukrainian civilians had been killed and 15,779 wounded since the start of Russia's unprovoked invasion in February last year.
In June alone, 112 civilians were confirmed killed and 445 were wounded, the UN said in a statement on June 19, warning that the actual toll is likely to be much higher.
Most of the victims were killed by heavy artillery fire as well as missile and air strikes, the UN said.
WATCH: A Ukrainian tank unit played a key role in a recent counteroffensive operation that managed to recapture several villages in the Donetsk region. The tank crew claims to have advanced more than 6 kilometers along the Mokri Yaly River in the hotly contested region.
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Ukrainian Tank Commander Recounts 'Three-Day Shoot-Out' To Liberate Donetsk Villages
On the diplomatic front, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on June 20 said he had called on China to use its influence over Russia more in regard to the war in Ukraine.
Speaking alongside China's Premier Li Qiang after bilateral talks in the German capital, Scholz also said China should not supply weapons to Russia and that the war in Ukraine should not become a frozen conflict.
China is Russia's largest economic partner for Russia, which has been hit by biting Western sanctions following its unprovoked invasion on Ukraine in February last year. The trade volume between Beijing and Moscow amounted to a record $190 billion last year.
According to customs data published on June 20, Chinese imports of Russian oil last month reached their highest level since the invasion -- 9.71 million tons.
In Brussels, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said the European Union asked member states to provide 50 billion euros ($55 billion) more to support Ukraine over the next four years.
"This financial reserve will allow us really to calibrate our financial support according to the evolution of the situation on the ground," von der Leyen said.