Russia falls back in NE Ukraine
UKRAINIAN troops have pushed Russian forces back from the northeastern city of Kharkiv and some have advanced as far as the border with Russia, Ukrainian officials said yesterday.
The developments, if confirmed, would signal a further shift in momentum in favour of Ukraine nearly three months into a conflict that began when Russia sent tens of thousands of troops over the border into Ukraine on February 24.
Sweden meanwhile was to take a formal decision to apply to join Nato following a similar move by Finland – a change in the Nordic countries’ long-standing policy of neutrality brought on by the Russian invasion and concern about President Vladimir Putin’s wider ambitions.
“Europe, Sweden and the Swedish people are living now in a new and dangerous reality,” Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said during a debate in parliament in Stockholm. Moscow warned of “far-reaching consequences” should they go ahead.
And in another setback for Putin, McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast food chain, said it was pulling out of
Russia because of the conflict.
In Brussels, the EU was working on a package of further economic sanctions on Russia to step up international pressure on Putin.
On the battlefields near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, interior ministry adviser Vadym Denisenko said Ukrainian troops were mounting a counter-offensive.
“It can no longer be stopped ... Thanks to this, we can go to the rear of the Russian group of forces,” he said.
Kharkiv, lying about 50km from the border with Russia, had endured weeks of heavy Russian bombardments. The Russian retreat from the city follows their failure to capture the capital Kyiv in the early stages of the war.
But thousands of people, including many civilians, have been killed across the country, cities have been blasted into ruins, and more than 6 million people have fled their homes to seek refuge in neighbouring states in scenes not seen in Europe since the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Russia denies targeting civilians.
Ukraine’s defence ministry said yesterday the 227th Battalion of the 127th Brigade of Ukraine’s Territorial Defence Forces had reached the border with Russia. Kharkiv region governor Oleh Sinegubov said the troops had restored a sign on the border.
If confirmed, it would suggest the north-eastern counter-offensive is having increasing success after Western military agencies said Moscow’s offensive in two eastern provinces known as the Donbas had stalled.
The governor of the Luhansk region in Donbas, Serhiy Gaidai, said the situation “remains difficult”, with Russian forces trying to capture the town of Sieverodonetsk.
He said leaders of the Lugansk People’s Republic, the territory in Luhansk controlled by Russian-backed separatists, declared a general mobilisation, adding it was “either fight or get shot, there is no other choice”.
In the south, fighting was raging around the city of Kherson and Russian missiles struck residential areas of Mykolayiv, the presidential office in Kyiv said. Reuters was unable to verify the reports.
In a blow for Russia, which has long opposed Nato expansion, Finland and Sweden moved ahead with plans to join the alliance.
But Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said yesterday that Finland and Sweden were making a mistake that would have far-reaching consequences. “They should have no illusions that we will simply put up with it,” Ryabkov said.
The most intense fighting appeared to be around the eastern Russian-held city of Izium, where Russia said it had struck Ukrainian positions with missiles.
Russia said yesterday that it had agreed to evacuate wounded Ukrainian soldiers from the bunkers below the besieged Azovstal steel works in Mariupol to a medical facility in the Russiancontrolled town of Novoazovsk.
Meanwhile, Greenpeace protesters blocked the entry of a Greek tanker into a southern English port due to its Russian fuel cargo with police making arrests, the green group said yesterday, drawing condemnation from the British government. Britain and the EU have separately banned Russianflagged vessels from their ports, with exemptions.