Russia claims capture of villages in northeast Ukraine as more than 1,700 civilians flee
May 11, 2024
Ukraine says Russian forces have captured five villages as part of a renewed ground assault in the northeastern Kharkiv region
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces have captured five villages as part of a renewed ground assault in Ukraine’s northeast, the country’s Defense Ministry said Saturday.
Ukrainian journalists reported Friday that Russian troops took the villages of Borysivka, Ohirtseve, Pylna and Strilecha, all of which lie in a militarily contested “grey zone” on the border of Ukraine's Kharkiv region and Russia.
Russian officials said they had also captured another village, Pletenivka, in a renewed attack on the region that Ukrainian authorities said forced more than 1,700 civilians to flee.
Artillery, mortar, and aerial bombardments hit more than 30 different towns and villages, killing at least three people and injuring five others, said Kharkiv Gov. Oleh Syniehubov.
Ukraine rushed reinforcements to the
Kharkiv region
on Friday to hold off a Russian attempt to breach local defenses, authorities said.Ukrainian forces also launched a barrage of drones and missiles on Saturday night, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said, with air defense systems downing 21 rockets and 16 drones over Russia’s Belgorod, Kursk and Volgograd regions. One person died in a drone strike in the Belgorod region, and another in the Kursk region, local officials said.
Another strike set ablaze an oil depot in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Luhansk region, killing four people and injuring eight more, Leonid Pasechnik, the region’s Moscow-installed leader said on the messaging app Telegram on Saturday.
Russian forces
stepped up their bombardment
of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in late March. Friday’s attack signaled a tactical switch inthe war
by Moscow that Ukrainian officials had been expecting for weeks.Russian military bloggers said the assault could mark the start of a Russian attempt to carve out a “buffer zone” that President
Vladimir Putin
vowed to create earlier this year to haltfrequent Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod
and other Russian border regions.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed Friday evening that Russian forces were expanding their operations. He also called on the country’s Western allies to ensure that promised deliveries of military aid would swiftly reach the front lines.
“It is critical that partners support our warriors and Ukrainian resilience with timely deliveries. Truly timely ones,” he said in a video statement on X. “A package that truly helps is the actual delivery of weapons to Ukraine, rather than just the announcement of a package.”
The Kremlin’s forces have repeatedly sought to exploit Ukraine’s shortages of ammunition and personnel as the flow of Western military aid to Kyiv has tapered off in recent months, with
promised new support
still yet to arrive.Ukraine previously said it was aware that Russia was assembling thousands of troops along the northeastern border, close to the Kharkiv and Sumy regions. Intelligence officials also said they had expected an attack there though Russia’s most recent ground offensive had been focused on parts of
eastern Ukraine
farther south.While Russia’s gains in the region have so far been limited, analysts at the U.S. think tank Institute of the Study of War described them Friday as “tactically significant.”
They said Russia had only “committed relatively limited manpower to their initial assaults” but that the offensive in Kharkiv “is meant to ... (draw) Ukrainian manpower and materiel from other critical sectors of the front in eastern Ukraine.”
The Russian military could also try to cut key supply routes and try to blockade Kharkiv, home to roughly 1.1 million people and only about 30 kilometers (about 20 miles) south of the border.
In the war's early days, Russia made a botched attempt to quickly storm Kharkiv but retreated from its outskirts after about a month. In the fall of 2022, seven months later, Ukraine’s army
pushed them out of Kharkiv
. Thebold counterattack
helped persuade Western countries that Ukraine could defeat Russia on the battlefield and merited military support.___
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https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
