Two weeks after the de facto launch of a long-awaited Ukrainian counter-offensive, both sides are claiming battlefield victories in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Kyiv claims its forces have successfully penetrated several miles beyond Russian defense lines and have retaken several strategic positions.
Moscow, for its part, says Kyiv’s counter-attack has been stopped in its tracks—at tremendous cost to Ukrainian manpower and equipment. 
According to Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Kyiv’s forces in recent days have pushed past Russian defense lines by more than 4 miles, retaking a total of 44 square miles of land.
“In the course of two weeks of offensive operations in the Berdiansk and Melitopol directions, eight settlements were liberated,” Maliar wrote on Telegram on June 19….