KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin He said this on Friday during a visit to China. Moscow military offensive in the Kharkov region of northeastern Ukraine is intended to create Buffer zone but no plan to take over the city.
This statement was President Putin’s first. The attack began on May 10th., a new front was opened and within days thousands of Ukrainians were evacuated. Early Friday morning, there was a large-scale drone attack on Russian-occupied Ukraine. crimea peninsula A power outage occurred in the city of Sevastopol after the earlier attack damaged aircraft and fuel storage at the air base.
Russian authorities also announced that an oil refinery was set on fire in southern Russia.
Moscow responded by launching an attack on the Kharkov region. Ukraine’s shelling of Russia’s Belgorod regionPresident Putin told reporters. When visiting the Chinese city of Harbin.
“I have said publicly that if this continues, we will be forced to create safe and sanitary zones,” he said. “That’s what we are doing,” he said, adding that Russian troops “are advancing every day as planned,” adding that there are currently no plans to capture the city of Kharkiv.
Ukrainian forces are fighting to stop a Russian advance into the Kharkiv region that began late last week. To increase the number of soldiers, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed two laws on Friday that allow prisoners of war to join the army and increase fines for draft evaders by five times. The controversial mobilization law will come into force on Saturday.
Russia conscripted prisoners of war early in the war, and manpower shortages forced new measures. The law grants some people charged with criminal offenses “parole from their sentences and entry into further military service” for a certain period of time. It does not apply to people convicted of crimes against Ukraine’s national security.
Fines for ignoring conscription notices or not updating information with the conscription board will be increased to 25,500 hryvnia ($650) for citizens and 51,000 hryvnia ($1,300) for civil servants and legal entities. . The previous fine was 5,100 hryvnia ($130) for citizens and 8,500 hryvnia ($215) for civil servants and legal entities.
Ukrainian authorities have evacuated about 8,000 civilians from Vovchansk, a town 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Russian border and a flashpoint in recent conflicts. The usual tactics of the Russian army are reduce towns and villages to ruins Air strikes before troops move in.
At least two people were killed and 19 injured in the Russian bombing of Kharkov, regional head Oleh Sinyevov said in a Telegram post on Friday. Four of the injured were in critical condition.
Ukraine’s military commander, Colonel Oleksandr Shirsky, said on Friday that the new Russian offensive had “expanded the war zone by about 70 kilometers” in a bid to force Ukraine to disperse its forces and bring in reserves.
President Zelenskiy said on Friday that in the Kharkiv region, Russian troops had advanced up to 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border.
Separately, President Putin spoke about the Ukraine peace conference scheduled for next month in Switzerland, saying it was a futile attempt to force the terms of a peaceful settlement on Russia, saying Russia had not been invited to the conference. He emphasized that no.
He said Russia was ready for talks, but dismissed Zelenskiy’s peace initiative as wishful thinking. He said future peace talks should be based on the draft agreement that Russia and Ukraine negotiated at the 2022 Istanbul talks.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has carried out drone strikes on Crimea to counter a Russian military offensive in northeastern Ukraine, increasing pressure on the outnumbered and outstripped Ukrainian military. Delivery of important weapons is delayed and ammunition from Western partners.
A Ukrainian intelligence official confirmed to The Associated Press that the country’s intelligence services attacked Russian military infrastructure facilities in the Black Sea coast of Novorossiysk and the Russian-occupied city of Sevastopol. The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The official said the operation was carried out by Ukrainian-made drones and targeted ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense announced that its air defenses shot down 51 Ukrainian drones over Crimea, 44 over Russia’s Krasnodar region, and six over Russia’s Belgorod region. Russian fighter jets and patrol boats also said they had destroyed six maritime drones in the Black Sea.
At least three fighter jets were destroyed in the Crimea attack a few days ago, according to satellite images of the air base provided by Maxar Technologies.
Mikhail Razvozhaev, the governor of Sevastopol, a major base for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, said the drone attack had damaged the city’s power plant. He warned residents of the outage, saying it could take a day for power to be fully restored. He also announced that he would temporarily close city schools.
In the Krasnodar region, authorities said a drone attack early Friday started a fire at a refinery in Tuapse, which was later extinguished. There were no casualties. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted and damaged refineries and other energy facilities deep in Russia.
Krasnodar Region Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said debris from the downed drone near Novorossiysk port started several fires, but there were no casualties.
Belgolov Oblast Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said a Ukrainian drone hit a vehicle, killing a woman and her four-year-old child. Another attack there also left a gas station’s fuel tank set ablaze.
Recent Russian attacks have also targeted eastern Donetsk, the northern Chernihiv and Sumy regions, and the southern Zaporizhzhya region, clearly seeking to further expand Ukraine’s depleted resources.
According to the commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Shirushkyi, the Russian military has increased its forces in northern Ukraine and is currently advancing near the village of Lipshi and the city of Vovtyansk.
Shirschiky said he also inspected units “preparing for defense” in Sumy. On Tuesday, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Kirillo Budanov reportedly said that the Russian military plans to launch offensive operations in Sumy.
Russia is also testing defenses elsewhere along a roughly 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) front that snakes north-south through eastern Ukraine. Over the past 18 months, a war of attrition, little has changed.
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