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What the early June 2023 reports showed
Summary
A look back at the security picture on 9 June 2023, drawn from reports in the days before it, from Zaporizhzhia to Belgorod.
What did the security picture look like on 9 June 2023? The reports of the preceding days point to pressure on several fronts, including on Russian territory itself, and to claims on both sides that were presented without independent confirmation in the material at hand.
Western tanks in the frame
On 8 June 2023, the Russian Defence Ministry said it had destroyed several Ukrainian army tanks in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, among them a Leopard 2. The ministry described it as the first Western-made tank destroyed by Russian forces in the war. A video it released showed a column of tanks being hit in a field, with one vehicle confirmed as a Leopard 2.
Fighting inside Russia
The Belgorod region had been a second area of tension. According to background on the events, armed groups from Ukraine carried out a cross-border raid into Belgorod Oblast on 22 May 2023. Two Russian rebel groups based in Ukraine, the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps, claimed to have taken several border settlements. The Polish Volunteer Corps also took part. Russian authorities called the attackers a Ukrainian sabotage group and imposed counter-terrorism measures in the region. It was the largest cross-border attack of the war since the invasion began on 24 February 2022.
On 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 remained trapped there and could not be evacuated because shelling continued.
Strains on the Russian side
Also on 5 June 2023, Wagner Group mercenaries published a video of a captured Russian commander. In it he claimed that he had ordered his troops to fire on a Wagner convoy leaving Bakhmut.
Civilians under fire
The human cost continued far from the front line. 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 days together
Taken together, the reports show a war in which armour was being targeted in the south, a border region of Russia was contested, and missile strikes still hit residential areas. Several of the claims, such as the Belgorod village capture and the commander's account, were assertions by the parties involved.
