The Russian military has "failed" to carry out its offensive in the Kharkiv region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video message on social media late on June 8.
After speaking with military commanders earlier in the day, Zelenskiy said on X that Ukrainian forces were "restraining" Russia's advance in the area and "destroying the Russian units that enter our land and terrorize the Kharkiv region."
He added that this was "a very important result."
The White House on June 9 did not directly confirm Zelenskiy's remarks, but national-security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS TV that Russia's advance on Kharkiv had been resisted for now.
"One thing I will point out is that the momentum of that operation in Kharkiv has stalled out," Sullivan said.
"Now, Kharkiv is still under threat, but the Russians have not been able to make material progress on the ground in recent days in that area," he added.
Russian forces began an offensive in the Kharkiv region along the Russian-Ukrainian border on May 10, in an action that analysts have described as a bid to establish a "buffer zone" to protect Russian territory.
Fighting has been particularly intense around the town of Vovchansk, which the Ukrainian military said on June 8 remained "largely" under Ukrainian control.
On May 17, Ukraine's military commander, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskiy, said Russia had expanded the breadth of the offensive to a line of nearly 70 kilometers in an effort to force Ukraine to deploy forces from its reserves.
WATCH: RFE/RL's Maryan Kushnir reports from the front line in the defense of Kharkiv.
Ukraine's HUR military intelligence service reported on June 9 that a drone attack the previous day on an airfield in Russia's Astrakhan region had damaged an advanced Su-57 multipurpose fighter. The Su-57 is Russia's most modern fighter and is capable of striking with Kh-59 and Kh-69 cruise missiles.
"The damage to the Su-57 is the first such case in history," the HUR statement said, noting that the Akhtubinsk airfield is located nearly 600 kilometers from the front line in Ukraine.
The Russian military reported that 27 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted over the occupied region of Crimea and over Russia's North Ossetia, Krasnodar, Astrakhan, Belgorod, Bryansk, Rostov, and Tula regions.
It was the first time Ukrainian strikes were reported in North Ossetia.
