Macron says ‘Ukraine will not be conquered’
Macron has vowed that “Ukraine will not be conquered” and said “the war of aggression led by Russia is already a strategic and geopolitical failure for the country” during his joint press conference with Polish and German leaders.
“We will ensure that Russia does not emerge victorious, and we will also prevent its withdrawal from this war,” Macron pledged.
Leaders gathered to find a common consensus ahead of an upcoming NATO summit set to take place in Lithuania’s capital Vilnius July 11-12.
During a security conference in Bratislava, Slovakia, in May, Macron urged Western nations to provide Ukraine with “strong, concrete and tangible” security guarantees and also offer the country “a path towards (NATO) membership”.
However, NATO countries have different opinions on how to react to Ukraine’s request to join the military alliance.
Battles are ‘fierce’ but Ukrainian forces ‘moving forward’: Zelenskyy
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has claimed that his forces were making progress on the battlefield and inflicting necessary losses despite rain and fierce fighting.
“The battles are fierce, but we have movement and that is crucial,” he said in his nightly video address.
“The enemy’s losses are exactly what we need,” he added.
“I thank our guys for every Ukrainian flag that is now returning to its rightful place in villages on the newly de-occupied territory,” he said after Kyiv claimed to have recaptured seven villages from Russian forces.
Counteroffensive could go on for months, Macron says
French President Emmanuel Macron has confirmed that the Ukrainian counteroffensive has started and said it had been meticulously planned by military leaders with a great tactical sense.
“The Ukrainian counteroffensive started several days ago,” Macron said, speaking alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish President Andrzej Duda at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Monday.
“It will be deployed over several weeks or even months,” he added.
“We have done everything to help it,” Macron said. “We have intensified the delivery of ammunitions, weapons and armed vehicles … We’ll continue in coming days and weeks.”
Ukraine says it has liberated three more settlements in southeast
Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar says the country’s forces have made further advances in a counteroffensive launched last week.
In a Telegram post on Monday, she said seven settlements had been liberated, including three not previously claimed – Lobkove, Levadne and Novodarivka in the southeastern Zaporizhia region.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko has said 41 people were still missing in the floods caused by the Nova Kakhovka dam breach, which it blamed on Russia and which killed 10 people in the southern Kherson region.
“Currently, we know about 10 dead in Kherson and the region,” Klymenko said on Telegram. “We are also reporting 41 people as missing.”
The governor of the Kherson region, the most affected by the flooding, said two bodies were found on Monday in the regional capital, also called Kherson.
“Today, an unidentified woman and a 50-year-old man were found drowned in one of the city’s districts,” Kherson’s Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram.
A day earlier, Prokudin said three people were killed as Russia shelled a rescue boat evacuating people after the devastating floods.