RIGHT SPEAK: UKRainian Army Advances in 2 Southern Directions; UKR Defence Forces Advance on Bakhmut's Flanks, Some Units Operate in the City; RUssia Launches 1ST Drone Strike on Kyiv in 12 Days and ALL are Shot Down; Nearly 800 RU Soldiers Killed and 100 Pieces of RU Equipment Destroyed on 1 July, LIVE UPDATES and MORE

Photo by Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Official: Ukrainian army advances in 2 southern directions:

Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said on July 2 that Ukrainian forces had advanced in the direction of Berdyansk and Melitopol in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

According to her, Ukrainian forces are facing "intense enemy resistance, remote mining and redeployment of (Russian) military reserves."

At the same time, Maliar reported that Russians had advanced in several directions in Donetsk Oblast – Lyman, Avdiivka, and Marinka.

In the Svatove direction, Luhansk Oblast, Russian forces have also conducted an offensive.

Maliar called the situation there "quite difficult. She added that Russian troops had attacked two settlements near Svatove - Belohorivka and Serebryanka. --->READ MORE HERE

Defence forces advance on Bakhmut's flanks, some units operate in the city:

Defence forces are advancing on the southern and northern flanks around Bakhmut, and Ukrainian sniper groups and "some other units" are operating in the city itself.

Source: Serhii Cherevatyi, spokesperson for the East Grouping of Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, during the national joint 24/7 newscast

Quote: "There are no inside city intensive battles there [in Bakhmut – ed.], our sniper groups and some other units operate there, about which we can say something later. The massive onslaught continues on the southern and northern flanks around the city.

We’re advancing there. When we verify it, we will confirm it – we will tell you the details."

Details: According to Cherevatyi, the defence forces seized the initiative on the Bakhmut front.

"If the enemy attacked us for 10 months, now we are pressuring the enemy, but we are pressuring with completely opposite tactics – we are using all the achievements of domestic and world military science, unmanned aerial vehicles, reconnaissance, high-precision systems to destroy the enemy, to break through passages in minefields. And step by step, without emergency actions that can lead to heavy losses, we are advancing. And in principle, we are fulfilling the set tasks of assault on the enemy," he said.