KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Ukrainian forces have secured “combat control” of areas where Russian forces invaded the northeastern Kharkiv region earlier this month.
“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 flashpoint of fighting since Russia launched an offensive in the Kharkiv region on May 10.
Vodratskyi also reportedly said that once Vovchansk was secured, Russian forces would target the cities of Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Pokrovsk in the neighbouring Donetsk region.
It was not immediately possible to independently verify these claims.
Kiev hits power outage as Russia continues focus on bombing Ukraine’s power infrastructurehttps://t.co/XAXsbIPm4m
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 22, 2024
Russia’s Kharkiv offensive appears to be a coordinated new offensive that has tested Ukraine’s defenses in the Donetsk region in the south, as well as launching advances into the Sumy and Chernihiv regions in the north. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the Kremlin forces are seeking to create a “buffer zone” in Kharkiv to prevent attacks from across the Ukrainian border.
Kharkiv, capital of the region of the same name, is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Russian border. Moscow’s forces have seized villages in the region in recent weeks as part of a broader offensive that analysts say may be an attempt to bring the city within range of artillery fire. Ukrainian authorities have evacuated more than 11,000 people from the area since the offensive began.
The Russian offensive is likely to be Ukraine’s biggest test since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Ukrainian forces, outnumbered and outgunned, are being squeezed at multiple points along a roughly 1,000-kilometer (622-mile) front line that snakes north to south through eastern Ukraine.
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.
Ukraine’s controversial military mobilization law comes into force amid Russian advancehttps://t.co/fIIEUEog7y
—Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 18, 2024
