Russia captured towns in northeastern Ukraine as more than 1,700 civilians flee the area

The russian forces They took five towns within their new land campaign in the northeast of UkraineMoscow’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday. Ukrainian journalists reported the day before that Russian troops had captured Borysivka, Ohirtseve, Pylna and Strilecha, which are located in a “Gray zone” disputed militarily on the border between the Kharkiv region of Ukraine and Russia.

Russian officials announced the capture of another town, Pletenivka, in an offensive that, according to ukrainian authoritieshas forced more than 1,700 civilians to flee.

Artillery, mortars and aerial bombardment hit more than 30 towns and left at least three dead and five wounded, explained the governor, Oleh Syniehubov.

Ukraine sent reinforcements to the province on Friday to repel a Russian attempt to breach local defenses, officials said.

The kyiv troops They also launched a barrage of drones and missiles on Friday night, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, which said its anti-aircraft defenses shot down 21 projectiles and 16 drones over Belgorod, Kursk and Volgograd provinces. One person was killed in a drone strike in Belgorod and another in Kursk, local officials said.

Another attack set fire to an oil depot in Ukraine’s Luhansk region, occupied by Kremlin forces, leaving four dead and eight wounded, Leonid Pasechnik, the region’s Moscow-appointed leader, said Saturday on the Telegram messaging app. .

Russian troops intensified their bombing of Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, in late March. Friday’s attack marked a tactical change by Moscow that the ukrainian authorities They had been waiting for weeks.

Russian military bloggers indicated that the assault could mark the beginning of Russian efforts to establish a “security zone”that the president of the country, Vladimir Putinhe pledged to create at the beginning of the year to stop frequent Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod and other border regions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed late Friday that Kremlin forces were expanding their operations and called on his Western allies to ensure that promised aid deliveries would soon reach the front lines.

“It is essential that partners support our warriors and the Ukrainian resistance with punctual and truly timely deliveries“, he stated in a video statement on the social network X. “A package that really helps is the delivery of weapons to Ukraineinstead of the simple package announcement”.

Kremlin forces have repeatedly tried to take advantage of shortages of ammunition and troops. Kyiv after the flow of Western military aid decreased in recent months, and given the delay in the arrival of new shipments.

Ukraine had said it knew that Russia was gathering thousands of soldiers along the northeastern border, near Kharkiv and Sumy provinces. Although the last offensive of the forces of Moscow It was in the east of the country, but further south, Ukrainian intelligence services said they also expected an attack in the northeast.

Although Russian advances in the region are limited for now, analysts at the Institute for the Study of War described them on Friday as “tactically significant”.

According to an American think tank, Russia ha “committed a relatively limited number of troops in its initial assaults“, but the offensive in Kharkiv “It is designed to (take out) Ukrainian troops and material from other critical sectors on the front in the east”.

The Russian military could also try to cut off key supply routes in the area and try to isolate Kharkiv, where about 1.1 million people currently live and is just 30 kilometers (about 20 miles) south of the border.

In the first days of the war, Russia He tried unsuccessfully to assault Kharkiv, but moved away from its periphery after a month of siege. Seven months later, in the fall of 2022, the army of Ukraine expelled rival forces from Kharkiv. The bold counterattack helped persuade Western countries that kyiv could defeat Moscow on the battlefield and deserved military support.