June 4, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

The United States believes the highly anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive will result in Kyiv taking back “strategically significant territory," Jake Sullivan, US President Joe Biden's national security adviser, told CNN's Fareed Zakaria.

Asked if this meant he expected some form of negotiations by the end of this year, Sullivan wouldn’t provide any sort of timetable but said that developments on the battlefield will have a “major impact” on any future negotiation.

“But what I will say is this: President Zelensky himself has said that this war will end ultimately through diplomacy,” Sullivan said.

Read more from Sullivan's interview here:

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Two Russian missiles struck an operational airfield near the central Ukrainian city of Kropyvnytskyi, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force said Sunday.

Four missiles headed for the airfield were intercepted, according to the official, Yurii Ihnat.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said earlier Sunday that it had attacked a Ukrainian military airfield using "long-range precision-guided air-launched weapons," though the Kremlin did not say where the strike took place.

Ihnat declined to share the consequences of the attack, but said the incident showed the necessity of strengthening air defenses across Ukraine. He said Kyiv needed more than the US-made Patriots, an advanced long-range air defense system, but also medium-range and short-range anti-aircraft missile systems.

Echoing Zelensky: Ihnat’s call for more air defense systems comes amid similar pleas by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Zelensky has continually urged western leaders to provide Ukraine with air defense equipment in part to protect its cities from Russian drones and strikes. These systems successfully shot down all of the missiles heading for Kyiv overnight Sunday, according to the head of the Ukrainian capital's military administration, Serhiy Popko,

Fresh shelling from Ukraine rocked Belgorod overnight, the governor said in a video posted Sunday morning, as Russian dissidents ramp up pressure on the western border region.

Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said there had been Ukrainian attacks in several locations under his administration.

Due to the violence, 4,000 people are being housed in temporary accommodations. Children in the area are being moved to a camp in Crimea for their own safety, Gladkov added.

Dissidents appear near shelled area: Also Sunday, the Freedom for Russia Legion, one of two dissident Russian units fighting under Ukrainian command, posted a video which they said showed their fighters on the streets of a village on the outskirts of Shebekino, one of the areas Gladkov said was attacked.

The footage appeared to show the legion in Novaya Tavolzhanka, according to geolocation by CNN, and groups of people moving through the streets as a unit.

“We’re going in! The advance assault group of the Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corp entering the suburb of Shebekino,” the group said in the clip's caption.

CNN cannot verify the legion’s claim, but the video’s release will be seen as a further attempt to destabilize Russia in the information space, as well as disrupting its military plans.

Meetings requested: In another bold move, the legion posted a video in which its leader and that of a second dissident group, the Russian Volunteer Corps, request a meeting with Gladkov. In exchange, they offered to release two Russian soldiers allegedly in their custody.

The video shows the purported soldiers giving their names and those of their hometowns in Russia. The dissident leaders — who have made no secret of their opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin — say they want to talk to Gladkov about the fate of the country and the war. No threat is made to the lives of the men they are holding.

Five drones were shot down over the town of Dzhankoi in Crimea overnight, a Russian-installed official said in a statement on Sunday.

In addition to the five interceptions, four other unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) jammed and failed to hit their targets, according to Sergey Aksenov, the Russian-backed head of Crimea's administration. 

There were no casualties as a result of the incident, though “windows were broken in three private houses and two cars,” Aksenov said. He added one unexploded UAV was found on the territory of a private household, resulting in the temporary evacuation of around 50 people. 

Dzhankoi is a key railway junction on the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Moscow from Ukraine in 2014 in violation of international law.

Earlier this year, Ukraine said its forces were responsible for explosions in the same location. Officials said they were targeting cruise missiles while Russia was transporting them.

Rescue workers recovered the body of a 2-year-old girl from the rubble of a building following a Russian strike on the small riverfront town of Pidhorodne, in southeastern Ukraine, on Saturday, a Ukrainian military official said.

The official, Serhii Lysak, head of Dnipropetrovsk region military administration, added that the number of people wounded in the attack rose to 22, including five children.

Ten private houses, several gas pipelines, a two-story building and a store were damaged, Lysak said.

To the south, the city of Nikopol was struck by Russian artillery, though no casualties have been reported. A three-story building, gas pipelines and one restaurant were damaged, Lysak said.

Lysak added that the Ukrainian military had intercepted two cruise missiles and a drone over the region.

Three people were injured and received medical treatment in the village of Mirny, near the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol, in the Zaporizhzhia region, a Russian-backed official said on Sunday, as both sides reported strikes in the area.

The official, Vladimir Rogov, who is on the council of the Russian-backed civil-military administration of Zaporizhzhia region, and Ivan Fedorov, the Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol, said that explosions had struck the cities of Melitopol and Berdiansk on Saturday.  

The Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, including the massive nuclear plant there, is partially occupied by Russian forces. The region is expected to be a major target in a possible Ukrainian counteroffensive this summer.

On Saturday, Rogov said that “6 rockets were shot down” by air defense systems in Berdiansk, and blamed Ukraine's Armed Forces for the attack. A day later, he said that residential structures sustained some damage due to debris from an intercepted rocket.

The Russian-installed Berdiansk civil-military administration said on Saturday that even though "the enemy missiles were destroyed in the sky," fragments of one of them fell "in the area of the Catholic Church and the bus station" and damaged a car. 

Initial reports suggest that "not a single air target reached" the Ukrainian capital Kyiv overnight despite Russian missiles being launched, Serhiy Popko, head of the city's military administration said Sunday.

Finland's accession to NATO highlights that Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has been a "strategic failure," according to US Ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski.

"What's changed in the last week is that NATO has expanded in a way that just emphasizes the strategic failure of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's decision to invade Ukraine," he said in an interview with CNN's Michael Smerconish on Saturday.  

His remarks echo those of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who visited Finland on Friday. Blinken also called Russia’s war a "strategic failure," saying it has diminished the country's influence and interests "for years to come."

Finland officially became the 31st NATO member in early April. The Russian invasion drove traditionally non-aligned Finland and Sweden to abandon their neutrality and seek to join the alliance.

When asked if any possible peace negotiations are ongoing, Brzezinski said:

"We're committed to a path of making sure a lasting peace includes a complete reconstruction of Ukraine and a drawing into it — as it wants — into the Western institutional orbit. And that's the opportunity here: to have a renaissance, emerge out of this crime of a war in central and eastern Europe," he said.

Brzezinski also said he believes the majority of US lawmakers remain committed to providing assistance to and showing solidarity with Ukraine. He noted that he's hosted over 150 members of Congress from both parties, including former House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and current Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Russian officials have reported deadly attacks in at least four locations in the Belgorod region and Ukrainian-aligned Russian units are ramping up their incursions, bringing the war to Russian territory.

At least seven people have been killed by shelling in Russian border regions since Friday, according to Belgorod's regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov.

Two men and a woman were killed in a barrage of 18 rockets fired on the village of Sobolevka, Gladkov said in a series of posts on his Telegram channel. A gas pipeline and a power line were also damaged in the strike.

Sobolevka, which is located in the Valuisky city district, is the easternmost location to have been struck over the past two weeks. A rail line runs through the village and enters Ukraine in Russian-occupied territory south of the attack, suggesting it may have been targeting Russia’s supply lines.

To the northwest along Russia's border with Ukraine, two women were killed in the village of Maslova Pristan when their car was hit by fire, Gladkov said. Two other women were killed in separate shellings on nearby villages.

Anti-Kremlin Russian fighters: Two units responsible for recent assaults on the border regions – Freedom for Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps – are made up of Russian soldiers opposed to President Vladimir Putin. Though not officially part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, they effectively fall under the command of Ukraine’s security forces.

While the cross-border attacks have a military impact, forcing Russia to consider redeploying resources to protect what have been shown to be weak borders, they also appear designed to have an impact on Russian morale.

Legion spokesperson Alexei Baranovksiy appeared on Ukrainian television Saturday and was asked about the aims of the incursions. 

It was not about trying to “die heroically,” he said.