Around thirty villages in northeastern Ukraine came under fire from Russia on Monday, which continued its new offensive in the Kharkiv region, occupying dozens of km2 of territory in a few days. “More than 30 localities in the Kharkiv region were hit by enemy artillery and mortar fire,” regional governor Oleg Synegoubov said on social media. He specifies that a total of 5,762 residents have been evacuated from these areas since the start of the fighting.
Russian forces have crossed the border since Friday to carry out an offensive in the directions of Lyptsi and Vovtchansk, two localities located respectively around twenty and around fifty km northeast of Kharkiv, the country’s second city. “Currently, the enemy is experiencing tactical successes,” the Ukrainian general staff acknowledged early Monday in a statement on Facebook. Moscow has mobilized “up to five battalions”, according to kyiv.
Information to remember:
- Russia continues its offensive in northeastern Ukraine
- Around thirty villages face Russian bombings
- 5,762 residents were evacuated from the affected areas
- The city of Kharkiv is not threatened at this stage
According to the Telegram channel DeepState, close to the Ukrainian army, the Russians managed to occupy a strip of approximately 70 km2 in the Lyptsi region and another of 34 km2 towards Vovchansk. For his part, Ukrainian military journalist and blogger Yuriï Boutoussov indicated that on “the first day of the Russian offensive” on Friday, the military chief of the Kharkiv zone had been replaced “due to certain problems”. AFP was able to see people evacuated near Vovchansk on Sunday, most of them elderly and disoriented.
“We weren’t ready to leave,” said Lyouda Zelenskaya, 72, with her cat Zhora in her arms. Like her, Liouba Konovalova, 70, remembered “the terrifying night” which preceded their evacuation. “Defensive battles and fierce fighting continue on a large part of our border,” summarized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday evening. “The idea behind the attacks in the Kharkiv region is to stretch our forces and undermine the morale” of the Ukrainian army.
No massive breakthrough
According to the Telegram Rybar channel, close to the Moscow army, after four days of the Russian offensive, “no large-scale breakthrough of the enemy’s defenses has been recorded.” “After clearing the ‘gray’ border zone, Russian assault units focused on penetrating the strongholds and defensive lines of the Ukrainian armed forces,” the channel added in a morning report on Monday.
Kharkiv is not threatened at this stage, “despite all the events taking place in the region”, and the city “is calm, we do not see people leaving”, declared its mayor, Igor Terekhov, on Sunday. Authorities in kyiv have been warning for weeks that Moscow could try to attack northeastern border regions, as Ukraine faces delays in Western aid and a shortage of soldiers.
This Russian advance comes at a time when in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin carried out a surprise reshuffle on Sunday evening and replaced his emblematic Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, after two years of conflict in Ukraine without a clear outcome. The new minister, Andrei Beloussov, is trained as an economist and — like Sergei Shoigu at the time of his appointment in 2012 — has no military background.
Inside Russia and in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, Ukrainian forces have increased strikes, particularly against energy infrastructure. Ukraine claimed Monday that it had struck an oil terminal and an electricity substation respectively in the Belgorod and Lipetsk regions of western Russia, not far from the Ukrainian border.
The Russian side has not given any indication regarding the attack on the oil terminal, but the governor of Lipetsk confirmed a fire at the electrical substation, without revealing the cause of the latter, nor accusing Ukraine. The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, assured that it had neutralized 31 Ukrainian drones overnight in several regions of the country and in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. kyiv says it is acting in response to strikes by the Russian army against civil sites, starting with its energy infrastructure.