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What the 8 June 2023 reports showed
Summary
A look back at security reports from 8 June 2023 and the days before, from the Zaporizhzhia front to the Belgorod border.
What did the security picture look like on 8 June 2023? The reports from that day and the preceding days pointed to fighting on several fronts at once, with claims and counterclaims that were hard to separate.
On 8 June 2023, the Russian Defence Ministry said it had destroyed several Ukrainian army tanks in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, including a Leopard 2 main battle tank. The ministry described it as the first Western-made tank destroyed by Russian forces in the war. It released a video showing a column of tanks being hit in a field, and one of the vehicles was confirmed to be a Leopard 2.
Pressure on the Russian side of the border
A second thread ran through Belgorod Oblast in Russia. The cross-border raid there began on 22 May 2023, when two Russian rebel groups based in Ukraine, the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps, claimed control of several border settlements. The Polish Volunteer Corps also took part. Russian authorities called the attacks the work of a Ukrainian "sabotage group" and imposed counter-terrorism measures in the region. It was the largest cross-border attack since the invasion began on 24 February 2022.
By 5 June 2023, the Russian Volunteer Corps claimed to have captured the village of Novaya Tavolzhanka. The governor of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said about 100 civilians were still trapped there and could not be evacuated because of continued shelling.
Friction inside Russia's forces
Also on 5 June 2023, Wagner Group mercenaries published a video of a captured Russian commander. In it, he claimed to have ordered his troops to fire on a Wagner convoy leaving Bakhmut. The video was released by Wagner, so the claim reflected that group's account.
The civilian toll
Civilians continued to bear the cost. On 3 June 2023, Russian forces struck a residential area in Dnipro Raion with Iskander cruise missiles. A two-year-old girl was killed and 22 other civilians were injured, five of them children.
Reading the day
Taken together, the reports show a war in which armoured units were being targeted in the south, a border region in Russia was under shelling and contested, and missile strikes still hit homes in Ukraine. The Leopard 2 claim was notable chiefly because it concerned Western-made equipment, which the Russian ministry highlighted in its own video.
