Russia announced today that it has captured a village near the city of Vovchansk in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, where the Russian military launched a new offensive last week.
Vovchansk is the gateway to Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city after Kiev, and the industrial “heart” of Ukraine. Russian attacks forced thousands of civilians to flee.
“Units of the northern brigade liberated the village of Staritsa in the Kharkiv region and continue their advance on the enemy’s defensive positions,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
About that, the assessment that a much broader Russian offensive in northeastern and eastern Ukraine, aimed at capturing Kharkiv, is imminent; expressed the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, during an exclusive interview he gave to Agence France-Presse and broadcast today.
Biggest territorial gains since end-2022 for Moscow
Moscow recorded its biggest territorial gains in one week since the end of 2022, seizing 257 square kilometers in the Kharkiv region alone, according to an AFP analysis based on data from the US Institute for the Study of War (ISW) transmitted yesterday .
The Russian advance, Ukrainian shortcomings and Zelensky’s protest to the West
Yesterday at noon, Kharkiv, which has been shelled frequently lately, suffered new Russian attacks, with at least three dead and another 28 injured, according to the latest casualty count released last night by Mayor Ihor Terekhov. In Vovchansk, Russian shelling killed a 35-year-old man and injured a 60-year-old man, according to the regional prosecutor’s office, which said both men were civilians. In Odesa, a major port in the south that is also frequently shelled, five people were hospitalized due to new damage, according to regional governor Oleh Kiper.
In turn, the Russian armed forces were confronted with Ukrainian drones about one centimeter long on the night of Thursday to Friday. Belgorod regional governor Vychislav Gladkov announced the death of a mother and her four-year-old son in a drone strike in the village of Aktyabrsky. In the evening, he reported that one man was killed in a drone strike in the village of Novaya Naumavska and another was hospitalized.
In the southwest region of Krasnadar, authorities said two Ukrainian drones caused a fire at a refinery in Tuapse. In the same region, “political infrastructure” caught fire in an attack on Navarasisk, a port on the Black Sea. In Crimea, Sevastopol, headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, was partially without power after a power distribution facility was hit, according to local authorities. Yesterday, a woman was killed in a Ukrainian attack in Bryansk, the regional governor announced.
“The country’s military prospects are weakening”
The events forced General Kirill Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, to issue an SOS. “The situation is borderline and getting worse by the hour,” the general said in a video call with the New York Times from a shelter in Kharkiv.
His grim assessment echoes assessments made by other Ukrainian officials in recent days that the country’s military prospects are fading. In addition to being outnumbered, Ukrainians face a critical shortage of weapons, especially artillery ammunition, while $60.8 billion worth of weapons from the United States – approved three weeks ago after months of deadlock in Congress – have just begun to be delivered. to arrive.
The aim is to exhaust Ukraine’s already scarce troops
Like most Ukrainian military officials and experts, General Budanov believes that Russian offensives in the northeast are aimed at depleting Ukraine’s already depleted troops and diverting them from fighting in other areas.
The general admitted that the Ukrainian army is trying to divert troops from other areas of the front to reinforce its defenses in the Northeast, but it is difficult to find the necessary personnel.
It remains to be seen whether these troop movements will weaken Ukraine’s defenses elsewhere on the front line.
The withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from another “key” area is also sought.
Russia’s main objective, agrees military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady, is to withdraw forces from Chasiv Yar, a strategic hill town where Ukrainians have been fighting for weeks to stop a Russian offensive. Chasiv Yar, in particular, is a key area for the defense of the Ukrainian-controlled part of the southeastern Donbas region, which Russia hopes to capture.
General Budanov estimated that Ukrainian forces will be able to reinforce their lines and halt the advance in the coming days. But he expects Russia to launch a new attack north of Kharkiv in the Sumy region.
“It’s hell,” said Tetyana Polyakova, who managed to flee the border town of Bovchansk, describing the city’s relentless shelling. “Believe me, I’ve seen it all since I lived in Bovchansk since the start of the war. I saw the bombings. I’ve seen them all, but I’ve never seen this before.”