- Only a few hundred residents remain in the war-torn northeastern Ukrainian town of Vovtyansk, which has shrunk from its pre-war population of 17,000.
- Vovtyansk has become the center of intense fighting, with heavy fighting involving the Kharkov and Donetsk regions.
- Russia’s recent advance into the region has captured at least seven villages, potentially pinning Ukrainian forces in the northeast.
Only a few hundred residents remain in the battleground town of Vovtyansk in northeastern Ukraine, where Kiev forces are engaged in heavy fighting with Russian forces, local officials said on Monday. .
The town, whose pre-war population of 17,000 had dwindled to just 2,500 by the time Russia resumed its ground offensive last week, has emerged as a focal point in heavy fighting engulfing the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions.
Local Ukrainian officials say they fear Vovchansk will mirror the fate of the Ukrainian cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, which were forced to retreat by fierce fighting and scorched-earth tactics. Stated. The Kharkov region governor, Oleh Snievov, said only 200 to 300 people remained in the town as Moscow forces were advancing to encircle the town from three directions.
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Local officials and soldiers say poorly constructed fortifications and enduring ammunition shortages enabled Russia to make a crushing advance into the region last week.
Ukrainian military medics from the 47th Brigade transfer a wounded comrade on a stretcher at a field hospital in the Avdiivka area of Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on May 10, 2024. Only a few hundred residents remain in the battleground town of Vovtyansk in northeastern Ukraine. Kiev forces are engaged in heavy fighting with Russian forces, local officials said on Monday. (AP Photo/Evgeny Maloletka)
Moscow captured at least seven villages over about 40 square miles in two days, most of which are already depopulated, according to the open-source monitoring project DeepState. This is a significant advance that could pin Ukrainian forces in the northeast as heavy fighting continues in the Donetsk region.
On Monday, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces were still engaged in heavy fighting in both regions. Fighting has broken out near the border between eastern and northeastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian soldiers, who are outgunned and outnumbered, are trying to thwart a major Russian ground offensive.
“Defensive operations are continuing in most of the border areas and fierce fighting continues,” President Zelenskiy said in a video address Sunday night.
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Analysts say Kremlin forces are looking to exploit Ukraine’s weaknesses before a major influx of new military aid to Kiev from the United States and European partners arrives on the battlefield in the coming weeks and months. It is said that they are aiming for it. That makes this period an opportunity for Moscow and one of the most dangerous for Kiev in the two-year war, they say. It is unclear how much of the promised aid has reached Ukraine.
The new Russian military advance into the northeastern Kharkiv region and the ongoing march into eastern Donetsk comes months after a front spanning some 620 miles barely budged. Meanwhile, both sides have pursued what has become a near-war of attrition, using long-range attacks.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces announced late on Sunday that Russian forces had carried out at least 22 attacks in two areas of the Kharkiv region in the past 24 hours that were “tactically successful.” The statement did not elaborate.
The Kharkov invasion likely serves three purposes for Russia. First, the Northeast operation could pin Ukrainian forces in the region and draw valuable reserves from heavy fighting in the Avdiivka and Chasiv Yar regions of the Donetsk region, where the Russian advance is much more important and strategically important. There is sex.
President Zelensky said fighting in the Donetsk region was “intense”, as was Kharkov. He said the Kremlin aimed to “spread its forces thinly” by opening a second active front in Kharkiv.
President Zelenskiy described the area around the Pokrovsk region, just inside Donetsk’s border with Ukraine, as “the most difficult area.”
Pokrovsk had a population of about 60,000 people before the war, and until recently was a two-hour drive from the front lines. Now it’s less than half that amount.
The capture of the Donetsk city of Avdiivka in February opened the door for Kremlin forces to advance westward deeper into Donetsk. Russia illegally annexed Donetsk and three other regions in 2022 shortly after invading Ukraine, and seizing control of all of Donetsk is one of the Kremlin’s main war goals.
Second, if Ukraine is unable to stop Moscow’s advance, a situation could arise that could lead to a future attack on the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest.
Finally, there is the possibility of creating a “buffer zone” to protect Belgorod, which the Kremlin is beset by frequent Ukrainian attacks. In March, Russia announced plans to evacuate around 9,000 children from the Belgorod region as shelling continued.
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Russian emergency services finished clearing debris in the region’s capital city of Belgorod on Monday. Authorities said the attack was caused by Ukrainian military shelling, and some houses were destroyed.
Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said 15 bodies were pulled from the rubble and 27 others were injured.
He said three more people were killed in shelling late Sunday in the city of Belgorod.
Evgeny Podubny, a well-connected military correspondent for Russian state television VGTRK, said in a recent Telegram post that the Kharkov attack marked the beginning of a “new phase.”
“We are pushing back the enemy from the border and annihilating the enemy in order to deprive the Kiev regime of the opportunity to attack Belgorod using relatively cheap rockets.”
