Russia launches armored attack in Kharkiv region of Ukraine

Ukraine says it has stopped a Russian armored offensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region after Moscow’s military launched a raid to try to break through defensive lines. The Defense Ministry has announced that it has sent military reinforcements to stop Russian attacks in the border area.

As reported by Defence, Russian troops have tried to infiltrate with armored vehicles in the early morning and “have been repulsed”, but fighting “continues with varying intensity.”

“At around 5:00 in the morning, the enemy tried to break our defensive line by covering itself with armored vehicles. For now, these attacks have been repelled; Fighting of varying intensity continues,” the ministry says. “The attacks from multiple rocket launchers, MLRS and artillery continued throughout the night. Unsuccessful attempts were made by subversive groups to break the border,” said Kharkiv regional head Oleg Sinihubov.

For his part, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Russia has launched an offensive in the region, but assured that his forces have “stopped” Moscow’s troops. “Ukraine confronted them with our troops, brigades and artillery. It is important that they can still deploy troops in this direction, that is a fact. But our military command was aware of this and calculated its strength to counter the enemy with fire. As far as I know, a fierce artillery battle took place in that direction between 7 and 8 in the morning. “We confronted them and stopped them with artillery fire,” he said, according to Ukrainian agency Ukrinform.

evacuation in vovchansk

According to Ukrainian officials, Russia used guided aerial bombs on Vovchansk, a city located a few kilometers from the border with the Russian region of Belgorod. According to the police, two people have been injured. Local officials have said civilians in and around Vovchansk are being evacuated due to intense Russian bombardment.

“Most people go out on their own means of transport. But at the same time, together with the humanitarian center, we are organizing transportation for those who do not have cars, ”the head of the local military administration, Tamaz Gambarashvili, said on the radio. “As residents say, they have never heard or seen anything like this. Heavy bombardment of the entire city. (…) It is very dangerous to live in the city.

The situation is not completely clear. Sinihubov said in a morning Telegram message that the Ukrainian armed forces were “safely holding their positions” and “not a single meter has been lost.” But a senior military source told Reuters that Russian forces had advanced one kilometer near Vovchansk.

According to the agency, the source says Russian forces are aiming to advance 10 kilometers into the area in an effort to establish a “buffer zone” and Ukrainian forces are fighting to stop Moscow’s advance.

The Kremlin promised to create such a zone earlier this year to deter Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod and other Russian border areas in March. Putin said after his re-election, “I do not deny that at some point, when we deem it appropriate, we will be forced to create a certain ‘sanitary zone’ in the areas today under Kiev rule. ”

A new front?

The bulk of the Russian offensive is in the Donetsk region, where Russia has been managing to advance in recent weeks, but Kiev has seen a recent concentration of troops near the Kharkov region, an area from where Ukrainian troops have been threatening Russian forces. Bijli’s counter-attack in September 2022 took the world by surprise. The region, unsafe due to its proximity to Russia, has been regularly attacked by Russian forces during large-scale offensives.

Sinihubov has said that the attack “poses no threat to Kharkiv” and that Russia had merely gathered enough forces for “provocation in the northern direction”.

Russia may not be able to capture Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city – it failed to do so in the first weeks of the invasion – but an offensive on this front could force Kiev to send more troops to the region. Due to which other areas will become more unsafe. For the attacks of the Moscow army.

More than two years after the start of the invasion, Moscow has regained the initiative on the battlefield, while Kiev suffers from problems of manpower and reserves of artillery shells and air defenses.