00:00 get you more on Ukraine. I'm joined here in the studio by France 24's senior
00:03 correspondent Catherine Norris-Trent. Good to have you Catherine. In terms of
00:07 these counter-offensives, where are we at this stage? What more do we know? So this
00:11 seems to be still in the initial stages. Most of the action that we're seeing so
00:14 far taking down in the southeast of that massive front line just on the border
00:19 between the Donetsk and Zaporizhia regions stemming from the village of
00:25 Velinka Novoselka. So the Ukrainians say they've taken
00:30 seven settlements, I suppose we can call them there. They're very small villages,
00:34 some with pre-war population levels of around a thousand people. And they
00:39 say they've taken around 90 square kilometers of land back along 100
00:43 kilometers long stretch of the front line. I mean that is progress and
00:47 especially considering that the front line has been very static in recent
00:50 months. And yet it's not the big major push of a counter-offensive that we're
00:55 seeing yet. And Ukrainian officials behind the scenes are saying look let's
00:58 not get too excited about this. This is you know not penetrating deep into
01:02 Russian defensive lines. Elsewhere on the front lines in the Zaporizhia region
01:07 in around the villages of Orekhiv and Hulyapol that there's not been a
01:10 breakthrough there. There is some land being taken back still incremental
01:15 gains around that ruined city of course on the northern and
01:19 southern flanks. So it's continuing the progress but it's not a big breakthrough
01:25 as of this stage. Well in terms of other developments on the ground in Ukraine
01:30 what else can we be keeping our eye on Catherine? So there's several developing
01:33 stories and it's difficult to get confirmed information because the nature
01:37 of the information circulating around and access. But Russian media have been
01:44 reporting the senior general, Major General Sergei Gorbachev has been killed,
01:49 was killed yesterday in southern Ukraine by a missile strike maybe a high-mass
01:53 strike. That has also been now broadcast by the Ukrainian army and he would be
02:00 the highest rank Russian military official to be killed this year.
02:05 Russia's lost a number of generals of course since the large-scale invasion
02:09 started. So quite a lot of their top brass have been killed. It could prove
02:13 significant. Another report that we're keeping an eye on and this has come out
02:16 in the Wall Street Journal quoting an anonymous Biden administration official.
02:21 They're saying that the US is considering providing tank shells with
02:25 depleted uranium to Ukraine. So these aren't nuclear weapons. They do have tips
02:30 which can pierce armor made of depleted uranium which are mildly radioactive. But
02:35 I don't know if you remember a while ago the US was talking about sending them to
02:39 Ukraine and Vladimir Putin warned the UK not to do that. The UK rather excuse me
02:44 said that if it sent depleted uranium shells Russia would respond accordingly
02:50 whatever that might mean and he said that it showed the West is collectively
02:54 is beginning to use weapons with a nuclear component. So again that is
02:58 manipulation. These aren't nuclear weapons but it could start off that war
03:02 of words again. And just on nukes briefly the Belarusian president
03:06 Alexander Lukashenko has said that he would have no hesitation in using
03:12 Russian tactical nuclear weapons if needed. They are set to be
03:18 deployed according to the Kremlin in Belarus around the 7th to
03:24 8th of July. It might not be down to Alexander Lukashenko to press the button
03:30 but again there's talk there of this nuclear component. A lot of people
03:33 skeptical Russia would use these tactical nuclear weapons but again it's
03:37 it's coming back into the discourse and it's something we need to keep an eye on.
03:40 Absolutely strong rhetoric you might say on both sides Catherine.
03:44 Finaldo our senior correspondent thanks so much. Thank you.
