President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces had secured “combat control” of the area where Russian forces entered the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine earlier this month.
KYIV, Ukraine — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukrainian forces have secured “combat control” of areas where Russian forces invaded the northeastern Kharkiv Oblast earlier this month.
Meanwhile, two people were killed in an airstrike on the region’s capital, the city of Kharkiv, on Saturday, local authorities said.
Kharkiv is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Russian border. Moscow’s forces have seized villages in the area in recent weeks as part of a broader offensive that analysts say may be trying to get within artillery range of Kharkiv. Ukrainian authorities have evacuated more than 11,000 people from the area since the offensive began on May 10.
“Our soldiers have successfully conducted combat control of the border areas into which Russian occupation forces had entered,” Zelenskiy said in a video address on Friday night.
Zelenskiy’s comments appear to contradict those of Russian officials.
Russian state news agency TASS reported on Friday that Russian parliament member Viktor Vodratsky said Russian forces now control more than half of the city of Vovchansk, which is about three miles (5 kilometers) inside the border.
Vovchansk has been a hotspot of fighting since Russia launched its offensive in Kharkiv Oblast. Vodratsky was also quoted as saying that once Vovchansk is secured, Russian forces will target the cities of Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Pokrovsk in the neighbouring Donetsk Oblast.
It was not immediately possible to independently verify this claim.
Russia’s Kharkiv offensive appears to be part of a coordinated new push that also includes testing Ukrainian defenses further south in Donetsk oblast – the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday that Russian forces had taken the village of Arkhanherske – and has also launched an advance into the northern oblasts of Sumy and Chernihiv.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Kremlin forces were trying to create a “buffer zone” in the Kharkiv region to prevent attacks from across the Ukrainian border.
The Russian offensive is likely to be Ukraine’s biggest test since Moscow’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. Outnumbered and outgunned, Ukrainian forces are being squeezed at multiple points along a roughly 1,000-kilometer front that snakes north to south through eastern Ukraine.
Russia continues to bomb the Kharkiv area with missiles, guided bombs and drones, in addition to conducting ground offensive operations along Ukraine’s northeastern border.
Oblast Governor Oleh Shniekhbov said an airstrike on a large construction supplies store in the city of Kharkiv on Saturday afternoon sparked a major fire, killing two people and wounding 33. He said more than 200 people may have been inside the store and that the fire has since been extinguished. Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov said a second bomb fell in the city’s central park.
President Zelensky called the strikes on the store a “manifestation of Russian madness” and called on Western countries to provide Ukraine with air defence systems.
“When we tell world leaders that Ukraine needs adequate air defense, we are literally speaking about how we will not tolerate terrorist attacks like this,” he said in the X post.
Ukraine is trying to hold its own against a much larger enemy, but problems have grown in recent months and the war appears to be reaching a critical point.
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Elise Morton reported from London.
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