Ukraine assured on Friday that it had “stopped” the Russian assault on the Kharkiv region, which had been underway for two weeks, and had begun a counterattack in this sector of the northeast of the country where President Volodymyr Zelensky said he find.
The Russian army launched an offensive in the Kharkiv region from the border on May 10, seizing several localities and forcing Ukraine to deploy valuable reinforcements in the area.
After two weeks of fighting, “the Ukrainian defense forces have stopped the Russian troops” and “are carrying out counter-offensive actions,” Colonel Igor Prokhorenko, an official of the Ukrainian General Staff, said on Friday.
He described the situation as “difficult”, but “stable and under control”, in this region where fighting is taking place in particular for control of the city of Vovchansk, cut in two and where kyiv has accused Moscow of abuses.
“The enemy is completely bogged down in street fighting in Vovchansk and has suffered very significant losses,” General Oleksandr Syrsky, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, assured Friday, affirming that Moscow was sending “reserves” to continue his assault.
Stretching the Ukrainian lines
According to kyiv, Russia aims to extend until breaking the defensive lines of the Ukrainian forces, weakened by two years of war, the lack of new recruits and shortages of weapons due to months of Western procrastination.
Since May 10, nearly 11,000 civilians have been forced to leave their homes in the region, Governor Oleg Synegubov said Thursday.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, announced that he would be in Kharkiv on Friday, notably for meetings on the “defense of the region, in particular in Vovchansk”.
“The city and the entire region of Kharkiv deserve all our support, gratitude and respect,” he wrote on social media.
Multiple Russian assaults
Regarding other sectors of the front, General Syrsky’s tone was more somber.
Further south in the Kharkiv region, the Russians have been on the attack near Koupiansk for almost a year. And now “the situation is complicated in the Kyslivka sector, where the enemy is trying to break through our defenses and reach the Oskil River.”
In the Donbass, the officer reported fierce clashes in the direction of Chassiv Iar, Pokrovsk and Kurakhove where the Russians have been nibbling ground for months, without achieving a decisive breakthrough for the moment.
Finally, “the most intense and violent fighting is taking place in the Pokrovsk and Kurakhove sectors. The enemy is trying to break through the defense of our troops on a narrow section of the front between Staromykhailivka and Berdychi,” he said.
Russia says it launched its May offensive in northeastern Ukraine to create a buffer zone meant to prevent Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory.
Russian advances near Chassiv Yar seem to have increased since the offensive of May 10. Moscow notably claimed the capture of two villages on the outskirts that Ukraine had barely liberated last summer.
The Kremlin is trying to take advantage of the fact that the opposing army has been weakened by losses and months of paralysis of American military aid.
Pressures on Westerners
In addition, Ukraine still lacks anti-aircraft defense means and is demanding that the Europeans and Americans finally authorize it to use the weapons provided to strike the army’s rear bases on Russian territory, something that the West has so far refused. here, for fear of an escalation.
President Zelensky is therefore increasing his interventions, pressing his allies to provide him with anti-missile systems and to authorize him to strike military targets in Russia with Western munitions.
In the meantime, Russian forces continue to bombard Kharkiv, the country’s second city. Around fifteen missiles hit it on Thursday, killing seven civilians.
New bombings during the night from Thursday to Friday damaged the regional railway infrastructure, vital for the economy and travel in a country deprived of air links in particular for more than two years.
Ukraine, for its part, continues to strike occupied areas, Russian regions and Crimea, annexed in 2014. The Russian governor of this peninsula, Sergei Aksionov, indicated that two civilians had been killed in the district of Simferopol, in the center of the peninsula.