Focus on east as Russia pulls back from Kharkiv
Russian troops were withdrawing from around Ukraine’s second-largest city after bombarding it for weeks, the Ukrainian military said Saturday, local time, as Kyiv and Moscow’s forces engaged in a grinding battle for the country’s eastern industrial heartland.
Ukraine’s military said the Russian forces were pulling back from the northeastern city of Kharkiv and focusing on guarding supply routes, while launching mortar, artillery and airstrikes in the eastern province of Donetsk in order to ‘‘deplete Ukrainian forces and destroy fortifications’’.
Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Ukrainewas ‘‘entering a new – long-term – phase of the war’’.
In a show of support, a US Senate delegation led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday in Kyiv. A video posted on Zelenskyy’s Telegram account showed McConnell, who represents the state of Kentucky, and fellow Republican senators Susan Collins, ofMaine, John Barrasso, of Wyoming, and John Cornyn, of Texas, greeting him. Their trip came after Kentucky’s other senator, Rand Paul, blocked until next week Senate approval of an additional $40 billion (NZ$64b) to help Ukraine and its allies withstand Russia’s three-monthold invasion.
Kharkiv, which is near 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 military objective earlier in the war, when Moscow hoped to capture and hold major cities.
Ukraine ‘‘appears to have won the Battle 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 attempting to seize Kyiv.’’
Regional Governor Oleh Sinegubov said via the Telegram messaging app that there had been no shelling attacks on Kharkiv in the past day.
He added that Ukraine launched a counteroffensive near Izyum, a city 125km south of Kharkiv that has been held by Russia since at least the beginning of April.
Fightingwas 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 same river in the town of Bilohorivka, Ukrainian and British officials said.
Britain’s defence ministry said Russia lost ‘‘significant armoured manoeuvre elements’’ of at least one battalion tactical group in the attack. A Russian battalion tactical group consists of about 1000 troops.
The ministry said the risky river crossing was a sign of ‘‘the pressure the Russian commanders are under to make progress in their operations in eastern Ukraine’’.
Zelenskyy has warned of a global food crisis as Russia blockades Ukrainian grain from leaving port.
The Group of Seven leading economies echoed that at the weekend, saying that ‘‘Russia’s war of aggression has generated one of the most severe food and energy crises in recent history, which now threatens thosemost vulnerable across the globe’’. –