Russian forces advance deeper into Northern Ukraine
According to Russian and Ukrainian troops, as well as aid workers, Russian forces continued to advance across northeastern Ukraine on Sunday, seizing several small settlements along the border and forcing Ukrainian troops to withdraw. retreat from some positions.
Ministry of Defense of Russia said on Sunday that its troops had captured four more settlements – all but one just north of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city – as they pushed forward with an offensive. The new attack was launched on Friday. Aid workers confirmed that Russian troops have advanced deeper into Ukrainian territory and are now threatening several small towns on the outskirts of Kharkiv.
A Ukrainian military unit fighting in the area said Russian forces were pushing from the Russia-Ukraine border toward Kharkiv.
“Today, in fierce fighting, our defenders were forced to retreat from some of their positions and today another settlement fell completely under Russian control,” a statement said. official said. video statement was released on Saturday night by Hostri Kartuzy, a Ukrainian special forces unit. “Russians are dying en masse. But they kept going and were successful in some areas.”
General Oleksandr SyrskyUkraine’s top military commander said the situation in the Kharkiv region had “deteriorated significantly” over the past week, but Russia’s efforts to penetrate Ukraine’s defenses had so far been unsuccessful.
Ukraine’s outnumbered and underarmed army has been stretched thin as it tries to defend a 600-mile front running from southern Kharkiv to the Black Sea city of Kherson. Military experts say that by opening a new front north of Kharkiv, the Russian army aims to further stretch Ukraine’s lines and make it easier to break through at certain points. than.
“The Russians understand, as do many analysts, that the biggest weakness Ukraine currently faces is manpower,” said Franz-Stefan Gady, a military analyst in Vienna. “By thinning the front line, you increase the likelihood of a breakthrough.”
Mr. Gady and other experts said the immediate goal of Russia’s new offensive is to force the Ukrainian military to withdraw desperately needed troops south of Kharkiv, especially around the surrounding region. the town of Chasiv Yar was besiegeda Ukrainian stronghold in the southeastern region of Donetsk.
Russian forces have been attacking Chasiv Yar for several weeks. Capturing the stronghold would put several towns important to the Ukrainian army’s logistics on the eastern front within Moscow’s line of fire.
With fierce fighting in the area, cross-border fire has increased and Russia on Sunday accused Ukraine of attacking a multi-story building in the Russian city of Belgorod, about 45 miles from Kharkiv. Vyacheslav GladkovThe governor of the Belgorod region said 19 people were injured in the shelling of the city and no deaths have been reported.
Ministry of Defense of Russia said debris from an intercepted Ukrainian missile fell on the building. Mr. Gladkov posted a video from the scene showed a giant hole in a building. “The entire entrance from the 10th floor to the first floor collapsed,” he said.
The claims cannot be independently verified. Andriy Kovalenkoa Ukrainian official working on Russian disinformation, said the claims were “untrue” and aimed at provocations that “justify further attacks on residential buildings in cities of Ukraine.”
Russian forces launched a complex, unexpected attack on Friday, deployed fighter jets, artillery, infantry and armored units, across the northeastern border between Russia and Ukraine.
Russian troops quickly occupied dozens of square miles of Ukrainian territory. Civilians living in small towns and villages along the border have been caught in the crossfire, and many are desperately trying to escape. More than 4,000 people had to evacuate Kharkiv Governor said on Sunday morning. Some of them were rescued along with their pets. Others were taken out on stretchers.
All day Saturday, minivans and even bright yellow school buses rumbled over cratered roads strewn with shrapnel to rescue people trapped in towns. subjected to heavy shelling.
On Sunday, those who had evacuated were pleading with their loved ones still in border villages to leave. Svitlana Nahorna said her husband was stuck in Bilyi Kolodiaz, a small village northeast of Kharkov.
“I begged him to leave but he refused,” she said while staying in a shelter for displaced people in Kharkiv. “We are concerned about whether we can get him out now.”
In addition to trying to distract thinly spread Ukrainian forces from disputed battlefields in eastern Ukraine, military analysts believe the Russians are also trying to create a buffer zone along the border to It is more difficult for Ukrainian forces to launch artillery into Russia. . The Russians may also be trying to get close enough to Kharkov to attack and sow panic, as they did in the early days of the 2022 war, analysts said.
Mykola Bielieskov, a military analyst at the government-run Ukrainian Institute for National Strategic Studies, said a buffer zone 10 to 15 kilometers deep within Ukraine “will certainly create problems for Kharkiv when put this city within range of” Russia. Artillery.
It remains unclear whether Russia will succeed in its goal of withdrawing enough Ukrainian troops from other areas of the front. Ukrainian officials said they had sent reinforcements to the Kharkiv region but did not specify how many units.
Mr. Bielieskov said Russia had not yet committed enough troops to the Kharkov offensive “to create a real dilemma for the Ukrainian military command and force large-scale redeployment from other areas of the surface.” battle”.
However, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine appears to have raised growing concerns about the current situation. address on Saturday. Citing all the fighting in eastern Ukraine, he added: “It’s extremely difficult.”
In a similar tone, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron warned about British television on Sunday that the situation around Kharkiv was “extremely dangerous.”
Oleksandra Mykolyshyn Contributing reports from Kharkiv.
