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Russian forces have occupied another three villages in Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region, as they press forward with a new offensive intended to stretch Ukrainian defences elsewhere on the frontline.
Russian troops have captured about 10 settlements in 100 sq km of territory along Ukraine’s border since launching the operation on Friday. Ukrainian officials and analysts said Kyiv’s forces were now fighting along a recently prepared defensive line and the Russians had not yet managed a significant breakthrough.
The Kremlin has not stated its aims for opening the new front but Ukrainian officials believe Russia wants to draw Ukrainian forces away from battles in the eastern Donetsk region.
Russian forces are making a much faster advance in the region than their grinding gains in the east of the country, but Ukrainian officials and analysts said much of the newly occupied area is a “grey zone” where neither side held positions because its lowland terrain was hard to defend.
Ukraine replaced its commander for Kharkiv in an effort to boost its defence of the north-eastern region, an army spokesperson said on Monday.
Ukraine’s general staff said there was fighting around settlements in the grey zone south of Pylna and on the outskirts of Vovchansk. It said reserves had been deployed to “stabilise the situation”.
“Our defenders conduct defensive actions [to] inflict damage on the enemy,” it said in a briefing on Monday. “[They are] using unmanned systems for the purpose of conducting reconnaissance and performing pinpoint strikes to achieve maximum losses.”
Maps compiled by Deepstate, an open source Ukrainian analysis group, indicated a battle is under way for control of Hlyboke, a village which sits at the end of a dual-carriageway to Kharkiv city, some 40km south. Russia captured three villages on Sunday, the group observed.
Serhiy Kuzan, chair of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center think-tank, said the relatively flat line shown on Deepstate’s maps indicated that Russia had not managed to achieve the kind of breakthrough it did a few weeks ago around Ocheretyne, near the city of Avdiivka in Donetsk.
Vadym Ivaneshchenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s 42nd Brigade, which is fighting around Hlyboke, said Russian forces were approaching their positions. He said his unit was “fully equipped”, though more drones and electronic warfare equipment were always needed.
Speaking on Ukraine’s Radio NV, the head of Vovchansk’s local administration, Tamaz Gambarashvili, said that it had been “extremely difficult” to build quality fortifications because the city was often being bombarded by Russian shelling. But Gambarashvili said the construction effort was ongoing.
Oleksandr Yakovets, head of transport at Ukraine’s defence ministry, told Ukraine’s national TV news on Sunday that the strongest fortifications, which comprise reinforced concrete structures, had been built between 17km to 35km away from the border.
Meanwhile, an official said that Ukraine’s SBU internal security services conducted another drone attack inside Russia, hitting an oil depot in Belgorod and an electricity substation in the Lipetsk region.
“Russian industry, which works for the war against Ukraine, will remain a legitimate target for the SBU. Measures to undermine the enemy’s military potential will continue,” the person said.
