Putin meets soldiers fighting Ukraine on Russia Day holiday

Russia's Defence Ministry has reported its forces have taken control of five settlements in Ukraine's Kharkov and Donetsk regions over the past week, while Ukraine on the same day reported attacks against Russian energy infrastructure.

This as Russian forces carried out seven retaliatory strikes over the past week

targeting infrastructure facilities used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting Friday with servicemen fighting in Ukraine.

Putin congratulated them on Russia Day and took their questions. During their conversation, Putin said "the enemy" was expanding the use of military drone technology primarily to achieve a single objective.

"That objective is to create division within Russian society to inflict moral damage on us, to seed confusion among Russian citizens and to cause economic harm," Putin said.

This as Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held an awards ceremony in Kyiv to celebrate the first Day of the Unmanned Systems Forces. In his speech, Zelenskyy said his country's advances in unmanned fighting systems were one of its greatest achievements.

He said unmanned systems had struck more than 356,000 Russian

targets in the past year. "It is proof of Ukrainian leadership in technology," Zelenskyy said.

Meanwhile, six people were injured in a Russian strike on Sumy Friday morning. State Emergency Service of Ukraine said the strike hit three separate parts of the city, damaging residential buildings and civilian infrastructure.

In Odesa, Russia struck a residential area. Two people were injured and several houses damaged or destroyed.

Ukraine's Air Force said Russia launched 117 long-range strike drones overnight. Air defences reportedly shot down or neutralised 102 of them while

14 hit targets on the ground.

Meanwhile a new blow to the Kremlin's narrative that its winning the four year military operation in Ukraine. Kyiv's forces have targeted supplies to Crimea, triggering the worst fuel crisis on the Black Sea peninsula since it was annexed by Russia in 2014.

The persistent attacks reflect the growing intensity and efficiency of Ukraine's drone strikes and have caught Russia off guard and struggling for a response.

And as the country marks the Russia Day national holiday, the start of the summer holiday, gas shortages threaten to cause further disruptions to the tourist dependent region with its beaches and resorts.