The Ukrainian military’s long-anticipated counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces has begun, opening a phase in the war aimed at restoring Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty and retaining Western support in the war, four members of Ukraine’s armed forces said.

Ukraine’s troops intensified their attacks on the front line in the country’s southeast, the four sources told the Washington Post.

Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc said Thursday that its MPs will attend the presidential election session on June 14 and will vote for Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri had also affirmed that his bloc will vote for Franjieh.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said he does not rule out that the 12th presidential election session might be “worse” than the previous sessions through blocking the first round’s quorum or boycotting the session altogether.

“The circumstances are appropriate, there is no need for boycott and we’re before two candidates with clear characteristics who enjoy the needed conditions and the support of some blocs. That’s why it is necessary to head to open-ended electoral sessions until the aspired result is reached,” Geagea said in an interview.

France has no presidential candidate for Lebanon, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna told her Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bou Habib Thursday in a meeting in Riyadh.

"All what France cares about is for a president to be elected," Colonna told Bou Habib.

Ex-president Michel Aoun has lashed out at some newspapers, especially Annahar and Nidaa al-Watan, accusing them of publishing “lies” about his meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday.

In a statement, Aoun’s press office said the former president “did not request a mediation or support for the position of the Free Patriotic Movement leader.”

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has stressed that his political camp will vote for Suleiman Franjieh in the upcoming presidential election session.

“We will vote for Suleiman Franjieh. We will all vote for him – we and our allies. None of us has said that he will cast a blank vote. We cast blank votes before our nomination of Franjieh and had they accepted the dialogue that I had called for twice we would not have reached the current phase,” Berri said in an interview published in al-Akhbar newspaper.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has threatened to bomb Hezbollah and Lebanon "into the stone age," if the Lebanese, Iran-backed group "makes a mistake" and "starts a war against Israel."

During a visit to the Israeli army’s northern command, he said: “I hear our enemies boasting about weapons they are developing. For any such development, we have an even better response -- by air, by sea and on land and through other means of attack and defense."

The choice of voting for Jihad Azour in the presidential elections is “certain and natural,” the Free Patriotic Movement said.

Voting for Azour is aimed at “stressing rejection of the election of the imposed candidate from whom no reform or change of the establishment controlling the country can be hoped,” the FPM’s political council said in a statement.

Former president and Free Patriotic Movement founder Michel Aoun held a meeting Tuesday in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

MP Hassan Fadlallah of Hezbollah on Tuesday said that Speaker Nabih Berri’s call for a presidential election session refutes the rival camp’s claims that “there won’t be a session because we don’t guarantee the success of our candidate.”

“We have a host of constitutional choices and we are discussing these choices with our allies and friends to take the appropriate stance in the coming session,” Fadlallah added.