Ukrainian forces gain ground
UKRAINIAN forces reported battlefield gains yesterday in a counter-attack 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 several kilometres of the Russian border yesterday, one Ukrainian military source said on condition on anonymity. Before the advance, Russian forces had been on the outskirts of Kharkiv, 40km from the border.
The gains appear to be the fastest that Ukraine has achieved 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 Vilhivka, a village east of Kharkiv held by Ukrainian forces, the thump of near constant artillery and swoosh of multiple rocket launchers could be heard from fighting at the front, now pushed substantially further east, where Ukraine has been trying to capture villages on the banks of the Donets river and threaten Russian supply lines on the far side.
Further east, Ukrainian forces seemed to be in control of the village of Rubizhne, on the banks of the Donets. Kyiv has so far confirmed few details about its advance through the Kharkiv region, maintaining secrecy about the positions of its own forces near the frontline while speaking in general terms about overall gains.
“We are having successes in the Kharkiv direction, where we are steadily pushing back the enemy and liberating population centres,” Brigadier General Oleksiy Hromov, the Deputy Chief of the Main Operations Directorate of Ukraine’s General Staff, told a briefing, providing no specifics.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said successes were putting Ukraine’s second largest city, which has been 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.
“We should not create an atmosphere of excessive moral pressure, where victories are expected weekly and even daily,” he said.
In Vilhivka, the advance had made it possible for residents to venture back to comb through the wreckage of their homes. Although the village itself was recaptured by Ukrainian forces weeks ago, the frontline was only now far enough away to make it safe to return.
Yesterday’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.
Shipments from Russia’s export monopoly Gazprom to Europe via Ukraine fell by a quarter after Kyiv said it was forced to halt all flows from the Sokhranovka transit point in southern Russia. Ukraine accused Russian-backed separatists of siphoning supplies.
Should the supply cut-back persist, it would be the most direct impact so far on European energy markets of the war. Apart from the east, Russia has seized a swathe of southern Ukraine, where Kyiv and its Western allies say they believe Moscow intends to organise a fake referendum on independence to make its occupation permanent.
The Kremlin said yesterday it was up to residents living in the Russian-occupied Kherson region to decide whether they wanted to join Russia, but any such decision must have a clear legal basis.
Russian forces have also continued to bombard the Azovstal steelworks in the southern port of Mariupol, the last bastion of Ukrainian defenders who have been under siege since the war began. Ukraine’s general staff said Moscow was trying to capture the steelworks.
The Azov Regiment holed up inside it said Russia was bombing the factory from the air and trying to storm it.
The wives of two of the last remaining Ukrainian fighters holed up in the steelworks met Pope Francis yesterday at the end of his audience in St Peter’s Square, and asked him to help persuade Russia to let them be evacuated.
“You are our last hope, I hope you can save their lives, please don’t let them die,” Kateryna Prokopenko, 27, could be heard telling the pope on a video released by the Vatican.