(Kyiv) Russia said on Sunday it was advancing in the Kharkiv region, in northeastern Ukraine, claiming the capture of four additional localities near the border as part of the offensive it launched on Friday, forcing thousands of civilians to be evacuated.
“A total of 4,073 people were evacuated,” Ukrainian regional governor Oleg Synegubov wrote on social media on Sunday, a day after Russian forces claimed the capture of five villages in the region.
The Russian Ministry of Defense then reported at midday the capture of four additional localities very close to the border – Gatichtché, Krasnoye, Morokhovets and Oleïnikovo – in this region which is home to Ukraine’s second city.
Mr. Synegubov said that on Sunday a 63-year-old man was killed by artillery fire in the village of Glyboke and that a 38-year-old man was injured in Vovchansk, a border town which had some 3,000 inhabitants before the offensive in progress.
AFP was able to see people evacuated near Vovchansk on Sunday, most of them elderly and disoriented.
“Terrifying Night”
“We weren’t ready to leave. Home is home,” says Lyouda Zelenskaya, 72, with her cat Zhora in her arms. Like her, Liouba Konovalova, 70, remembers “the terrifying night” which preceded their evacuation. Both lived together after their children left.
Around them, volunteers assist elderly evacuees sitting on benches to register and receive food before leaving for Kharkiv.
According to Oleksiï Kharkivsky, a Vovchansk police officer mobilized for these evacuations, “several people” died in bombings on Saturday and the body of another was discovered under rubble during the night. “The city is constantly under fire,” he says. “Artillery, mortars, the enemies attack with everything they have.”
According to him, some 1,500 people have been evacuated since Friday from this city affected by 32 drone attacks in the last 24 hours.
The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian forces Oleksandr Syrsky assured for his part that “attempts to break through our defenses have been stopped”.
But he admitted that the situation in the Kharkiv region had “significantly deteriorated” and remained “complicated”. Ukrainian forces are “doing everything they can to maintain their defense lines and inflict damage on the enemy,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky assured, in a speech on Saturday evening, that Ukrainian counterattacks were underway in this border area, from where Russian troops had been pushed back almost two years ago.
“Disrupting Russian offensive plans is now our number one task,” he said, urging Kyiv’s allies to speed up arms deliveries.
Authorities in Kyiv have been warning for weeks that Moscow could try to attack the northeastern border regions, as Ukraine faces delays in Western aid and a shortage of soldiers.
Fire in a refinery
On Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry said its troops had “liberated” five Ukrainian villages in the region, as well as another in the Donetsk region, further south.
Ukrainian forces, for their part, have increased strikes inside Russia and in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russians, in particular against energy infrastructure.
At least nine people were injured on Sunday in the partial collapse of a building in Belgorod, near the Ukrainian border, after a strike by the Kyiv army, Russian emergency services said.
REUTERS PHOTO
Rescue workers search for survivors following the collapse of part of a multi-story building in Belgorod on May 12.
A Ukrainian drone also caused a fire on the site of the Volgograd refinery (southern Russia) during the night from Saturday to Sunday, lamented the governor of the region of the same name, Andreï Botcharov, assuring that the disaster was extinguished and there were no casualties.
The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, said that a total of eight Ukrainian drones had been intercepted overnight, including one “over the territory of the Volgograd region”, without further details.
Owned by the giant Lukoil, the refinery claims on its website to be “the largest producer of petroleum products in the Southern Federal District”, which brings together eight regions in southwest Russia.
The site had already been the target of a Ukrainian drone attack in early February, without causing any casualties there either.
Kyiv says it is acting in response to strikes by the Russian army against civilian sites, starting with its energy infrastructure.