Russia withdraws from Kharkiv, batters east: Ukraine
Russian troops are withdrawing from Ukraine's second-largest city after weeks of heavy bombardment, the Ukrainian military said on Saturday as Kyiv and Moscow's forces engaged in a grinding battle for the country's east. 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 region.
Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Ukraine was "entering a new long-term phase of the war." As the country's top prosecutor put a Russian soldier on trial for war crimes, the first of dozens that could face charges, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 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.
Russia's offensive in the Donbas, Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland, appeared to be turning into a village-by-village, back-and-forth slog with no major breakthroughs on either side. After failing to capture Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, the Russian military decided to concentrate on
the Donbas, but its troops have struggled to gain ground.
The Ukrainian military chief for the Luhansk region of the Donbas said on Friday that troops had nearly full control of Rubizhne, a city with a prewar population of around 55,000.
Fighting was fierce on the Siversky Donets River near the city of Severodonetsk, where Ukraine has launched counterattacks 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 attack that destroyed a pontoon bridge they were using to try to cross the river in
Bilohorivka. McConnell, GOP senators meet Zelenskyy in surprise Kyiv stop WASHINGTON: Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and a delegation of GOP senators met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Saturday, delivering the latest show of American solidarity with the country at war with Russia. It was the second high-profile congressional delegation to stop in Ukraine in as many weeks.