Russian troops continued their advance into northeastern Ukraine on Sunday, seizing small settlements along the border and forcing Ukrainian troops to retreat from some positions, aid workers and the Ukrainian military said.
Aid workers say Russian troops have penetrated deep into Ukraine and are now threatening several small towns on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.
According to the Ukrainian military, Russian troops are advancing from the Russian-Ukrainian border to Kharkiv.
“Today, amid heavy fighting, our defenders were forced to retreat from more positions, and today another settlement has fallen completely under Russian control,” one official said. Video Statement Hostri Kartuzy, a member of the Ukrainian special forces, made the announcement on Saturday evening. “Russians are dying in droves. But they press on regardless and are successful in some areas.”
Russian troops launch complex surprise offensive Fighter jets, artillery, infantry and armor were deployed in a mammoth move across the northeastern border between Russia and Ukraine on Friday.
Russia on Sunday accused Ukraine of attacking a multi-story building in the Russian city of Belgorod, about 45 miles from Kharkiv, as fighting intensified in the region and cross-border exchanges intensified.this Russian state news agency TASS It said there were at least 17 casualties, but did not specify the death toll.
Russian Ministry of Defense Fragments of an intercepted Ukrainian missile were said to have hit the building. Vyacheslav GradkovThe governor of the Belgorod region released video from the scene showing a huge hole in the building. “The entire entrance from the tenth floor to the first floor collapsed,” he said.
The claims could not be independently confirmed, and Ukrainian officials did not immediately comment on the attack.
Russia’s new offensive near Kharkov has allowed its troops to quickly seize dozens of square miles of Ukrainian territory. Civilians living in border towns and villages are caught in the crossfire, and many are desperately fleeing.More than 4,000 people have been evacuated The governor of Kharkiv region said on Sunday morning. Some of the people were taken away along with their pets. Others were taken out on stretchers.
All day Saturday, minivans and even bright-yellow school buses rumbled along pockmarked roads strewn with bomb shrapnel, rescuing people trapped in heavily shelled towns.
On Sunday, evacuees begged relatives still in border villages to leave.
Svitlana Nahorna said her husband was trapped in Bilyi Kolodiaz, a small village northeast of Kharkiv.
“I kept begging him to leave, but he refused,” she said at a displaced persons shelter in Kharkiv. “We’re worried about whether it’s possible to get him out now.”
Military analysts believe that Russia launched this attack to distract the scattered Ukrainian army from the disputed battlefield in eastern Ukraine and force them to transfer unavailable troops to the northeastern border area.
Russia is also trying to create a buffer zone along the border to make it more difficult for Ukrainian forces to fire artillery at Russia. Analysts say the Russians may also try to get closer to Kharkov, shell it and spread panic, as they did early in the war in 2022.
“Seizing the city of Kharkiv is undoubtedly a desired operational goal of the Russian military, but it does not appear to be a goal that the Russian military is pursuing in the short term,” the Washington-based Institute for War Research group said. said in a report Saturday.
The group said the most likely purpose of the attack was to “draw Ukrainian forces from other areas of the front line while allowing Russian forces” to advance “within artillery range of the city of Kharkiv.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared to express growing concerns in a statement. Saturday address. “The focus is mainly on the front lines,” he said.
“It’s extremely difficult,” he added of all the fighting in eastern Ukraine.
Constant Mecht Reporting from Kiev.
