Casualties at the highest level since battle for Bakhmut, UK says. 
London, June 18.– Russia has suffered its highest losses since the peak of the battle for Bakhmut in March, British officials said on Sunday. The UK military said both sides are suffering high numbers of military casualties as Ukraine fights to dislodge the Kremlin's forces from occupied areas in the early stages of its counter-offensive.
The offensive is supported by Bradley and Leopard tanks and heavy artillery. Meanwhile, Spain confirmed earlier this week that it would send 20 armored vehicles and four more Leopard 2A4 main battle tanks to Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday praised Ukrainian forces for their “very effective” repelling of enemy assaults near Avdiivka, one of the focal points of fighting in the east. “The Avdiivka sector is very effective in repelling assaults,” Mr. Zelensky said in his nightly video address.
The head of the military administration in Avdiivka, a mining town shattered by months of fighting, told national television that Ukrainian forces had advanced about one km (two-thirds of a mile) around the town.
Away from Bahmut, the counteroffensive is focused on the southern front. According to British intelligence, the most intense fighting has centered on the southeastern Zaporizhzhia province. While other reports said that Russian forces were conducting "relatively effective defensive operations" in Ukraine's south, the village of Piatykhatky, in this contested region of southern Ukraine, is now under Ukrainian control, Russian-installed official, Vladimir Rogov, wrote on Telegram on Sunday. A few days before, soldiers of the 68th Jaeger Brigade "Oleksa Dovbush" liberated the village of Blahodatne, another settlement in Zaporizhzhia as the counteroffensive gathers pace.
Vladimir Putin showed African leaders what he claims to be a ‘draft peace agreement’ with Ukraine. The Russian president claimed that Ukraine had allegedly ‘refused to sign it’ so it was ‘thrown into the rubbish heap of history’. “This draft of the treaty was initialed by the leader of the negotiation group from Kyiv. He put his signature. There it exists,” he told while holding up the document.