Kharkiv Region (Ukraine) (AFP) – About thirty towns in the north-east of Ukraine came under fire on Monday from Russia, which continues its new offensive in the Kharkiv region, taking over tens of km2 of territory in a few days.
“More than 30 districts in the Kharkiv region were hit by enemy artillery and mortar fire,” regional governor Oleg Synegoubov said on social media.
He specifies that 5,762 residents have been evacuated from these areas since the fighting began.
Russian forces have crossed the border since Friday to launch an offensive in the direction of Lyptsi and Vovtchansk, two regions located about twenty and about fifty km northeast of Kharkiv, the second city- big in the country.
“Currently, the enemy is achieving tactical success,” the Ukrainian general staff said early Monday in a statement on Facebook.
Moscow has activated “up to five battalions”, according to kyiv.
According to the Telegram channel DeepState, near the Ukrainian army, the Russians managed to occupy a strip of about 70 km2 in the Lyptsi region and another one of 34 km2 to Vovchansk.
For his part, Ukrainian military journalist and blogger Yuriï Boutoussov pointed out that “on the first day of the attack on Russia” on Friday, the commander of the military of the Kharkiv zone was replaced “due to certain problems”.
AFP was able to evacuate people near Vovchansk on Sunday, most of them elderly and unruly.
“We weren’t ready to leave,” said Lyuda Zelenskaya, 72, her cat Zhora in her arms, as Lyuba Konovalova, 70, recalled “the scary night” that preceded the evacuation.
“Defense battles and fierce fighting continue on a large part of our border,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday afternoon, “The idea behind the attacks in the Kharkiv region is our forces to stretch and undermine the morale” of the Ukrainian army.
– No significant progress –
According to the Rybar Telegram channel, close to the Moscow army, after four days of the Russian attack, “no significant breach of the enemy’s defenses was recorded.”
“After clearing the ‘gray’ border area, Russian offensive units focused on penetrating the fortifications and defense lines of the Ukrainian armed forces,” the channel said Monday in a morning report.
Kharkiv is not in danger at this point, “despite all the events taking place in the area”, and the city is “calm, we don’t see people leaving” ,” its mayor, Igor Terekhov, said on Sunday.
Authorities in Kyiv have been warning for weeks that Moscow could try to attack the northeastern border areas, due to delays in Western aid and a lack of troops in Ukraine.
This Russian advance comes at a time when in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a surprise reshuffle on Sunday afternoon and replaced his iconic Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, after two years of conflict in Ukraine without clear result.
The new minister, Andrei Beloussov, is trained as an economist and – like Mr Shoigu at the time of his appointment in 2012 – has no military background.
Inside Russia and in Russian territories in Ukraine, Ukrainian forces have increased strikes, especially against energy infrastructure.
Ukraine said on Monday it had hit an oil plant and an electricity substation respectively in the Belgorod and Lipetsk regions of western Russia, near the Ukrainian border.
The Russian side has not given any indication regarding the attack on the oil plant, but the governor of Lipetsk confirmed a fire at the electrical substation, without revealing the cause of the latter, or accusing Ukraine.
The Russian Ministry of Defense, for its part, confirmed that it had neutralized 31 Ukrainian drones overnight in several regions of the country and in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014.
Kyiv says it is acting in response to strikes by the Russian military against civilian sites, starting with its energy infrastructure.
2024-05-13 11:51:20
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