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Zaluzhnyi calls top US general, discusses progress on front line and defense needs

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Zaluzhnyi calls top US general, discusses progress on front line and defense needs
Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces Valerii Zaluzhnyi at the funeral of a Ukrainian soldier in early March 2023 in Kyiv. (Photo: Yurii Stefanyak/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces Valerii Zaluzhnyi said on June 13 that he had another phone call with Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley about the progress made by Ukrainian forces on the front line and ongoing defense needs.

According to Zaluzhnyi, he spoke about the intense fighting going on in the eastern and southern parts of the country, as well as the gains Ukrainian forces have already made in the counteroffensive.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said on June 10 during a press conference in Kyiv that the counteroffensive was underway.

Ukrainian forces have already confirmed the liberation of several villages formerly occupied by Russia in Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk oblasts.

The long-anticipated counteroffensive is widely regarded as a crucial turning point for Ukraine, as it seeks to regain control of its territory from Russia while also avoiding pressure to make concessions to Russia during negotiations.

Zaluzhnyi added that he and Milley also discussed Ukraine's need to strengthen its air defense, artillery, and capabilities for counter-battery combat leading up to the next Ramstein summit.

The next Ramstein summit will take place on June 15 in Brussels and will primarily focus on Western allies' "fighter jet coalition" to supply Ukraine with modern fighter jets.

"We agreed to continue our dialogue. I thank General Milley for his consistent and unwavering support of Ukraine," Zaluzhnyi wrote.

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Kate Tsurkan

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Kate Tsurkan is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent who writes mostly about culture-related topics in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Her newsletter Explaining Ukraine with Kate Tsurkan, which focuses specifically on Ukrainian culture, is published weekly by the Kyiv Independent. The U.S. publisher Deep Vellum published her co-translation of Ukrainian author Oleh Sentsov’s Diary of a Hunger Striker in 2024. Some of her other writing and translations have appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Harpers, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She is the co-founder of Apofenie Magazine.

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