FIGHTING
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* Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces had retaken 6000 square kilometres of Russian-held territory since the beginning of the month.
* Russia has largely ceded its gains near Kharkiv and many of the withdrawing Russian soldiers have exited Ukraine, moving over the border back into Russia, a senior US military official said.
* Vitaly Ganchev, the Russian-installed head of Moscow's occupation administration in what remained of Russian-held territory in Kharkiv region, acknowledged Ukraine's troops had broken through to the frontier.
* Ukraine's general staff said its forces had recaptured more than 20 towns and villages in the past day.
* At least 1000 people have been killed in the last six months in fighting in the city of Izium but the real figure is probably much higher, an official said, two days after Kyiv's forces recaptured the major supply hub.
* Britain's defence ministry said Russia had probably ordered the withdrawal of its troops from the entire occupied Kharkiv region west of the Oskil River.
* In the wake of Kyiv's lightning counteroffensive, the mood among commentators on Russian state television was more subdued and the narrative turned to how allegedly Ukrainian forces overwhelmingly outnumbered the Russians in the northeast.
* Faced with one of its worst defeats in nearly seven months of war, the Kremlin insisted it would achieve its military goals and Putin maintained an air of business as usual as he chaired a meeting on the economy.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports.
DIPLOMACY, TRADE
* US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it was still early days in Ukraine's counteroffensive against the Russian military, but that Ukrainian forces have made "significant progress".
* Zelenskiy will speak with International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on Tuesday, two sources familiar with the plan told Reuters, as Ukraine continues to press the global lender for a fully fledged financing program.
* The Kremlin said it saw no prospect of peace talks and that what it calls the special military operation in Ukraine would achieve its goals.
* The acting United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said Russia was intimidating opponents of the war in Ukraine, violating the right to access information by pressuring journalists, blocking the internet and imposing other forms of censorship.
Australian Associated Press
