Russian forces appear to be advancing at a slower pace in northeastern Ukraine after a massive border crossing last week, with heavy fighting raging around a village about five miles from the border, Ukrainian officials and military analysts said on Wednesday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia’s offensive in the northeast was causing concern in Kiev. canceled his participation All international engagements in the coming days include a visit to Spain on Friday, where he is expected to sign a security deal.
Ukrainian officials say civilians continue to flee northeastern Ukraine amid heavy shelling by Russian troops, warning that the situation on the ground could change quickly as their forces must contain relentless attacks.
General Kyrilo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency tell ukrainian tv On Tuesday, the situation in the attacked area was “stabilizing” and more Ukrainian troops were rushed in to repel the Russian offensive. But he added, “The situation is quite tense and changing very quickly.”
general staff of ukraine Around noon on Wednesday, Russian troops “have not conducted active operations in the northeast since the beginning of the day.” But hours earlier it acknowledged that Ukrainian troops had withdrawn from positions near two villages to avoid further casualties, allowing Russian troops to enter.
Assessments by Ukrainian officials and analysts appear to be backed by open source map of battlefield Compiled by an independent group analyzing combat footage. The maps show Russian forces gaining a foothold in two settlements over the past day, advancing at a slower pace than before, when they captured up to five settlements a day.
Russian Ministry of Defense It said on Wednesday it had captured two settlements in the northeast, as well as the village of Robtan in the south. These claims cannot be independently verified and are inconsistent with what open source maps show.
Robotin was recaptured by Ukrainian forces last summer, one of the few gains from Ukraine’s then-unsuccessful counteroffensive. If it fell back into Russian hands, it could be a blow to Ukrainian military morale.
The two villages where Russia has established a foothold are Lukyantsi and Vovchansk, which lie along two of Russia’s offensive lines in the region – one immediately north of the large city of Kharkiv and the other One is a dozen miles to the east.
Wovchansk police chief Oleksiy Kharkivskiy confirmed on Wednesday that Russian troops had taken up positions in several streets in the village. “The fighting continues” and the situation is “extremely difficult,” he said in a statement. Video posted on Facebook Fierce gunfire could be heard in the background, coming from the village.
Wovchansk has been under heavy bombardment since the Russian offensive began on Friday, including powerful guided weapons known as glide bombs, which can fire hundreds of pounds of explosives in a single blast. Local authorities say nearly all residents of the village, which had a pre-war population of 17,000, have fled.
Oleh Syniehubov, Chief of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration said on wednesday Nearly 8,000 civilians have been evacuated from villages and settlements in the area. Among them are residents of villages on the outskirts of Kharkiv, which have come under increased shelling in recent days.
Krystyna Havran, a member of the village council of Lyptsi, about 10 miles north of Kharkiv’s outer ring, said she had been busy evacuating residents in recent days as fighting drew closer. “No one expected an attack,” she said.
Sinehupov said Kharkiv had been targeted six times on Tuesday, including a glide bomb that hit the city’s north, causing severe damage to a 12-story apartment building and injuring 22 people. A video Footage released by the national police showed officers walking on piles of rubble inside the building as firefighters put out the fire.
Mykola Bereskov, a military analyst at Ukraine’s government-run National Institute for Strategic Studies, said Russia’s attacks were aimed at “instilling fear and making people flee frontline urban areas.” But he added that to force Kharkiv’s 1.2 million residents to flee, Russia would have to “systematically target the city for weeks.”
Analysts say this could explain Russia’s push north of Kharkov. If Russian troops took up positions in a village like Lipsey, they would be within artillery range of the city and could bombard the city with artillery shells.
Russia also has Target power plants and substations It is part of a campaign to cut power to large swaths of the country and make life miserable for civilians since March in the Kharkiv region and other parts of Ukraine.
The strike severely limits available power generation capacity in Ukraine. As a result, the country’s national transmission system operator Ukrenergo implemented emergency power outages to homes and businesses in several areas on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning to save energy.
Power outages in Kyiv are limited, affecting only 10% of consumers local authority.But Ukrainian energy companies warn New outages could be in place again Wednesday night.
Daria Mitiuk Contributed reporting.
