South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Russia pulls back in Kharkiv region
Move comes after apparent advances by Ukraine troops
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia’s Defense Ministry announced Saturday that it was pulling back troops from two areas in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region where a Ukrainian counteroffensive has made significant advances in the past week.
The news came after days of apparent advances by Ukraine south of Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, in what could become the biggest battlefield success for Ukrainian forces since they thwarted a Russian attempt to seize the capital, Kyiv, at the start of the war that began in February.
“The Russian army in these days is demonstrating the best that it can do — showing its back,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video released by his office Saturday night.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said troops would be regrouped from the Balakliya and Izium areas to the eastern Donetsk region. Izium was a major base for Russian forces in the Kharkiv region.
Konashenkov said the Russian move was being made “to achieve the stated goals of the special military operation to liberate Donbas,” an eastern area home to two separatist regions Russia has declared sovereign.
Earlier Saturday, Ukrainian officials claimed major gains in the Kharkiv region, saying their troops had cut off vital supplies to Izium.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko also suggested troops had retaken Kupiansk, a town along the main supply route
to Izium, long a focus on the Russian front line and the site of heavy artillery and other fighting. Nikolenko tweeted a photo showing soldiers in front of what he said was a government building in Kupiansk, 45 miles north of Izium.
The Ukrainian Security Service posted a message hours later saying troops were in Kupiansk, further suggesting it had been seized. The military did not immediately confirm entering the town, a railway hub Russia seized in February.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said Saturday that it believed Ukrainian troops had advanced as much as 30 miles south of Kharkiv, and described Russian forces around Izium as “increasingly
isolated.”
“Russian forces were likely taken by surprise. The sector was only lightly held and Ukrainian units have captured or surrounded several towns,” the British military said, adding that the loss of Kupiansk would greatly affect Russian supply lines.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, likewise referenced sweeping Ukrainian gains, estimating that Kyiv has seized around 965 square miles in its eastern breakthrough. The institute said it appeared that “disorganized Russian forces (were) caught in the rapid Ukrainian advance,” and cited social media images of apparent Russian prisoners
seized around Izium and surrounding towns.
The same report said Ukrainian forces “may collapse Russian positions around Izium if they sever Russian ground lines of communication” north and south of the town.
Vladislav Sokolov, head of the Russian-appointed local administration, said on social media that authorities in Izium had started evacuating residents to Russia.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian emergency services reported that a 62-year-old woman was killed in a Russian missile strike in the Kharkiv region when her home was flattened overnight.
The Ukrainian governor of Kharkiv, Oleh Syniehubov,
accused Moscow of pummeling retaken settlements. He said via Telegram that five civilians were hospitalized in the Izium district, while nine others suffered injuries elsewhere in the region.
In the embattled Donbas, the Ukrainian governor said civilians were killed and wounded overnight by Russian shelling near the city of Bakhmut, a key target of the stalled Russian offensive. Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram that two people died and two were injured in Bakhmut and neighboring Yahidne.
In the Russian-held city of Enerhodar, home to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, electricity and water were restored after a four-day outage due to an explosion, said Ukrainian mayor Dmytro Orlov.
Enerhodar and its Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant have come under repeated shelling in recent weeks, which Russia and Ukraine accused each other of committing. The shelling has raised fears of a radiation leak at the plant, which has been cut off from outside power sources; the facility has been forced to rely on power from its only working reactor for systems cooling and other safety measures.
Orlov said workers from the plant assisted in restoring Enerhodar’s power, but it was not clear if the electricity was coming from the plant or from a nearby thermal generating station.