Russian troops withdraw from around Kharkiv, says Ukraine
Zelensky says Ukrainians are doing their ‘maximum’ to drive out the invaders and that the outcome of the war would depend on support from Europe and other allies
Russian troops are withdrawing from around Ukraine’s second-largest city ater bombarding it for weeks, the Ukrainian military said on Saturday, as Kyiv and Moscow’s forces engaged in a grinding batle for the country’s eastern industrial heartland.
Ukraine’s general staff said the Russians were pulling back from the northeastern city of Kharkiv and focusing on guarding supply routes, while launching mortar, artillery and airstrikes in the eastern Donetsk province in order to “deplete Ukrainian forces and destroy fortifications.”
Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Ukraine was “entering a new — long-term — phase of the war.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainians were doing their “maximum” to drive out the invaders and that the outcome of the war would depend on support from Europe and other allies.
“No one today can predict how long this war will last,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address late on Friday.
In a show of support, a US Senate delegation led by Republican leader Mitch Mcconnell met the Ukrainian president on Saturday in Kyiv. A video posted on Zelensky’s Telegram account showed Mcconnell, who represents the state of Kentucky, and fellow Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine, John Barrasso of Wyoming and John Cornyn of Texas greeting him.
Their trip came ater Kentucky’s other senator, Rand Paul, blocked until next week the Senate’s approval of an additional $40 billion to help Ukraine and its allies withstand Russia’s threemonth old invasion.
Ater Russian forces failed to capture Kyiv following the Feb.24 invasion, President Vladimir Putin shited his focus eastward to the Donbas, an industrial region where Ukrainian troops have batled Moscow-backed separatists since 2014.
Russia’s offensive aims to encircle Ukraine’s most experienced and best-equipped troops, who are based in the east, and to seize parts of the Donbas that remain in Ukraine’s control.
Air strikes and artillery barrages make it extremely dangerous for reporters to move around in the east, hindering efforts to get a full picture of the direction the fighting is taking. But the batle appears to be a back-and-forth slog with no major breakthroughs on either side.
Russia has captured some Donbas villages and towns, including Rubizhne, a city with a prewar population of around 55,000.
Zelensky said Ukraine’s forces have also made progress in the east, retaking six Ukrainian towns or villages in the past day.
Kharkiv, which is not far from the Russian border and only 80 kilometres southwest of the Russian city of Belgorod, has undergone weeks of intense shelling. The largely Russian-speaking city with a prewar population of 1.4 million was a key Russian military objective earlier in the war, when Moscow hoped to capture and hold major Ukrainian cities.
Ukraine “appears to have won the Batle of Kharkiv” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said. “Ukrainian forces prevented Russian troops from encircling, let alone seizing Kharkiv, and then expelled them from around the city, as they did to Russian forces atempting to seize Kyiv.”
Regional governor Oleh Sinegubov said in a post on the Telegram messaging app that there had been no shelling atacks on Kharkiv in the past day.
He added that Ukraine had launched a counteroffensive near Izyum, a city 125 kilometres south of Kharkiv which was held by Russia since at least the beginning of April.
Fighting was fierce on the Siversky Donets River near the city of Severodonetsk, where Ukraine has launched counteratacks but failed to halt Russia’s advance, said Oleh Zhdanov, an independent Ukrainian military analyst.
“The fate of a large portion of the Ukrainian army is being decided — there are about 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers,” he said.
However, Russian forces suffered heavy losses in a Ukrainian atack that destroyed a pontoon bridge they were using to try to cross the same river — the largest in eastern Ukraine — in the town of Bilohorivka, Ukrainian and British officials said. It was another sign of Moscow’s struggle to salvage a war gone awry.