In the latest show of force against Russian forces in occupied Crimea, the Ukrainian General Staff of the Armed Forces on June 10 claimed to have successfully struck three Russian antiaircraft missile systems.
The Ukrainian military reported that one S-400 antiaircraft missile division in the Dzhankoy area and two S-300 antiaircraft missile divisions near Chornomorskiy and Yevpatoria were destroyed and an “immediate shutdown of S-300/S-400 complex radars was recorded.”
The Russian Defense Ministry has not commented on these reports, but a Planet Labs satellite image viewed by RFE/RL shows apparent evidence of a large fire near a railroad in the city of Dzhankoy.
Russian Telegram channels say that Russian air defenses shot down at least four ballistic missiles over Crimea. The claim has yet to be verified, but the General Staff said none of its missiles was intercepted.
Satellite images provided by Planet Labs also confirm a strike on a resort in the Belgorod region, RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service said on June 10.
There had been unconfirmed photos published on social media indicating the presence of Russian military at the site, which has outdoor facilities such as tennis courts, playgrounds, areas for grilling and camping, as well as a hotel with at least 100 rooms.
Sky News on June 9 quoted a Ukrainian intelligence source referring to an attack on a command post in the Belgorod region. The report said the strike was carried out by Ukrainian aircraft.
The resort is 10 kilometers from Russia's border with Ukraine and near the town with Shebekino. Russian news media have not reported on the strike but some buses traveling from the region to Belgorod are being rerouted around Shebekino.
Aftermath of alleged Ukrainian strike on Nezhegol recreational facility in Belgorod oblast
A separate report on June 10 quoted Dmytro Pletenchuk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Navy, as saying that a fire is burning on the Russian ship Admiral Levchenko in the Barents Sea. He described the Admiral Levchenko as a “large anti-submarine ship” with several hundred crew on board.
He added that sanctions imposed by Ukraine mean that it “cannot independently service engines produced in Mykolayiv.”
Russian has not reported that the ship is on fire.
The reported strikes in Crimea and Belgorod come ahead of a June 15-16 peace summit on Ukraine, which Swiss President Viola Amherd said will bring together nearly 90 countries and organizations. Participants in the peace summit are expected to discuss the front lines of the war with Russia amid conflicting claims of success.
Speaking in the Swiss city of Bern on June 10, Amherd said that participants in the summit -- about half of whom will be heads of states or governments -- will look to find an avenue to halt the fighting that has raged for more than two years after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor.
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"This is not propaganda," Amherd told journalists. "This is about the basis of humanitarian aid provided by Switzerland...and to initiate a dialogue."
While French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz are expected to attend the summit, officials from China and Russia will be notably absent from the event.
Some governments say the process is flawed without the participation of both sides in the conflict. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Brazilian special adviser Celso Amorim have signed a statement calling for negotiations “recognized by both Russia and Ukraine.”
Moscow was not invited and says the process is meaningless without its participation. Ukraine says Russia's presence would only distract and create obstacles to making progress in charting a course to peace
Some governments say the process is flawed without the participation of both sides in the conflict. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Brazilian special adviser Celso Amorim have signed a statement calling for negotiations “recognized by both Russia and Ukraine.”
Ahead of the summit, intense fighting has seen both sides make claims on the battlefield.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who is helping arrange the June 15-16 Swiss summit, said in a video message on social media late on June 8 that Ukrainian forces were "restraining" Russia's advance in the area and "destroying the Russian units that enter our land and terrorize the Kharkiv region."
RFE/RL was not able to independently verify the claim, but U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS TV that while Kharkiv "is still under threat," the Russians "have not been able to make material progress on the ground in recent days in that area."
Russian forces began an offensive in the Kharkiv region along the Russian-Ukrainian border on May 10, in an action that the Kremlin has described as a bid to establish a "buffer zone" to protect Russian territory from cross-border strikes by Ukraine.
On June 10, meanwhile, a local official in the Sumy region -- to the northwest of Kharkiv -- denied claims by Ramzan Kadyrov, the authoritarian ruler of Russia's North Caucasus region of Chechnya, that Russian forces led by a Chechen-based special forces unit had seized control of the town of Ryzhivka.
Fighting has also been particularly intense around the town of Vovchansk, which the Ukrainian military says remains "largely" under Ukrainian control.
Ukraine's HUR military intelligence service reported on June 9 that a drone attack the previous day on an airfield in Russia's Astrakhan region had damaged an advanced Su-57 multipurpose fighter. The Su-57 is Russia's most modern fighter and is capable of striking with Kh-59 and Kh-69 cruise missiles.
"The damage to the Su-57 is the first such case in history," the HUR statement said, noting that the Akhtubinsk airfield is located nearly 600 kilometers from the front line in Ukraine.