Ukraine continues counterattacks, restricts pipeline flow to Europe
KYIV/VILHIVKA — Ukrainian forces reported battlefield gains on Wednesday in a counterattack that could signal a shift in the momentum of the war, while Kyiv shut gas flows on a route through Russian-held territory, raising the spectre of an energy crisis in Europe.
Following days of advances north and east of the second largest city Kharkiv, Ukrainian forces were within just several kilometres of the Russian border on Wednesday morning, one Ukrainian military source said on condition on anonymity. Before the advance, Russian forces had been on the outskirts of Kharkiv, a city 40 km from the frontier.
The advance appears to be the fastest that Ukraine has mounted since it drove Russian troops away from Kyiv and out of the country's north at the beginning of April. If sustained, it could let Ukrainian forces threaten supply lines for Russia's main attack force, and even put rear logistics targets within Russia itself within striking range of Ukrainian artillery.
In Vilkhivka, a shattered village east of Kharkiv recaptured by Ukrainian forces, the thump of near constant artillery and swoosh of several rocket launchers could be heard from fighting at the front.
Andrii Korkin, 48, who had ventured to Vilkhivka to check on his parents' home, said he was a native Russian-speaker, the group Moscow said it went into Ukraine to defend.
“I want nothing to do anymore with the world of the Russian Federation,” Korkin said.
Although the village itself had been recaptured by Ukrainian forces weeks ago, the front line was only now far enough away to make it safe to return.
The bloated body of a Russian soldier still lay mouldering outside the bombed-out school where his unit had made its headquarters before being driven out.
On Wednesday evening, Ukraine's general staff said its forces had captured Pytomnyk, a village on the main highway north of Kharkiv, halfway to the Russian border. The governor of the Russian region on the other side, Belgorod, said a village had been shelled from Ukraine, wounding one person.
Further east, Ukrainian forces seemed to be in control of the village of Rubizhne, on the banks of the Donets River.
“It is burned out, just like all Russian tanks,” a Ukrainian soldier told Reuters near Rubizhne next to the ruins of one Russian tank. “The weapons are helping a lot, the antitank ones.”
Kyiv has so far confirmed few details about its advance through the Kharkiv region.
“We are having successes in the Kharkiv direction, where we are steadily pushing back the enemy and liberating population centres,” Brig.-Gen. Oleksiy Hromov told a briefing, providing no specifics.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said successes were putting Ukraine's second largest city — under constant bombardment since the war's early days — beyond the range of Russian artillery. But he cautioned Ukrainians against raising their expectations too high yet.
Wednesday's separate move by Ukraine to cut off Russian gas supplies through territory held by Russian-backed separatists marked the first time the conflict has directly disrupted shipments to Europe.
Russian forces have also continued to bombard the Azovstal steelworks in the southern port of Mariupol, last bastion of Ukrainian defenders in a city now almost completely controlled by Russia after more than two months of siege.
Ukraine's Azov Regiment holed up inside it said Russia was bombing from the air and trying to storm it.
“Azovstal is on fire again after the bombing. If there is hell on Earth, it is there,” wrote Petro Andryushchenko, an aide to Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko, who has left the city.