1,700 civilians flee as Russia captures five Ukraine villages

KYIV: Russian forces have captured five villages as part of a renewed ground assault in Ukraine’s northeast, the country’s Defence Ministry said Saturday.

Ukrainian journalists reported Friday that Russian troops took the villages of Borysivka, Ohirtseve, Pylna and Strilecha, all of which lie in a militarily contested “grey zone” on the border of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region and Russia.

Russian officials said they had also captured another village, Pletenivka, in renewed attack on the region that Ukrainian authorities said forced more than 1,700 civilians to flee. Artillery, mortar, and aerial bombardments hit more than 30 different towns and villages, killing at least three people and injuring five others, said Kharkiv Gov. Oleh Syniehubov. Ukraine rushed reinforcements to the Kharkiv region on Friday to hold off a Russian attempt to breach local defences, authorities said. Ukrainian forces also launched a barrage of drones and missiles on Saturday night, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said, with air defence systems downing 21 rockets and 16 drones over Russia’s Belgorod, Kursk and Volgograd regions. One person died in a drone strike in the Belgorod region, and another in the Kursk region, local officials said.

Another strike set ablaze an oil depot in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Luhansk region, killing four people and injuring eight more, Leonid Pasechnik, the region’s Moscow-installed leader said on the messaging app Telegram on Saturday.

Russian forces stepped up their bombardment of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in late March. Friday’s attack signalled a tactical switch in the war by Moscow that Ukrainian officials had been expecting for weeks.