Moscow:

Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Monday that its forces had taken control of two villages in eastern Ukraine.

It was the second day in succession that Moscow has announced the capture of new localities. Ukrainian military statements have, at least in part, denied the Russian assertion.

The Russian ministry said in a statement that its forces were in control of the settlement of Stepova Novoselivka in Kharkiv region, and of Novopokrovske in Donetsk region.

The General Staff of the Ukraine’s Armed Forces, in an evening report, said its troops had repelled 17 attacks in the Kupiansk sector near Kharkiv, including by Stepova Novoselivka. It said fighting was raging near Synkivka, further west.

Russia has announced a string of incremental gains since capturing the city of Avdiivka in Donetsk region in February.

Donetsk and Kharkiv regions remain focal points along the 1,000-km (600-mile) front line in Ukraine’s east and south.

The Ukrainian military earlier said it had repelled Russian attacks near two towns in Donetsk region — Novooleksandrivka and Spirne, a day after Russian forces claimed control of them. The evening report said fighting continued near both localities.

The evening report identified the Pokrovsk front as the theatre of the fiercest fighting. Forty-four Russian assaults had been repelled in the last 24 hours, with 14 clashes still going on.

The military said Russia maintained a military presence across the border from Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv and Sumy regions, adding that Moscow’s forces were increasing the density of minefields and conducting sabotage activities.

That area is under scrutiny for any sign that Russia plans to open a new front to pressure Ukraine’s outnumbered defenders.

Russia launched an assault into the border areas of the northeastern region of Kharkiv in May, opening a new front in 28-month full-scale invasion.

The latest Ukrainian report said Kyiv’s troops controlled the area and turned back 11 Russian assaults near three towns, including Vovchansk, 5 km (3 miles) from the border.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A view shows a destroyed building following what local Russian-installed authorities called a Ukrainian military strike in the settlement of Yubileiny in the Luhansk region, Russian-controlled Ukraine, in this still image from video released May 20, 2024.
| Photo Credit: VIA REUTERS

Russia’s defence ministry said Sunday its forces had captured a village in the northeastern Kharkiv region.

Russian troops “as a result of successful combat actions liberated the settlement of Berestove in the Kharkiv region,” the ministry said.

Berestove is located on the eastern front line close to the Lugansk region, which is almost entirely under Russian control.

Russia this month launched an offensive in the north of the Kharkiv region close to the Russian border, making its largest territorial advances for 18 months.

Ukraine said Friday that it had managed to stop Russia from advancing further and was counter-attacking, but that Moscow was now intensifying its assault at other parts of the front.

A Ukrainian serviceman of the 92nd separate assault brigade guards an area, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, near the town of Vovchansk in Kharkiv region, Ukraine on May 19, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock voiced concern on May 21 over the worsening battlefield conditions for Ukrainian forces on the eastern front, during an unannounced visit to Kyiv.

The visit from Ms. Baerbock, who urged the West to supply Ukraine with more air defences, came after more than two dozen Russian drones targeted Ukraine overnight, in an attack that left several wounded in the eastern Kharkiv region.

“The situation in Ukraine has once more dramatically deteriorated with the massive Russian aerial attacks on civilian infrastructure and the brutal Russian offensive in the Kharkiv region,” Ms. Baerbock said when she arrived for her eighth visit to the country since Russia invaded in February 2022.

To protect itself from the “rain of Russian drones and missiles”, Ukraine “urgently needs a boosted air defence”, she said.

“Our support is based on the deep conviction that Ukraine will win this war,” Ms. Baerbock said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned last week that the Russian ground offensive launched this month in the Kharkiv region may only be a “first wave” and that Russian troops could be aiming for the city of Kharkiv — the second largest in Ukraine.

The Russian official appointed by Moscow as governor of the Kharkiv region said on Tuesday that his country’s forces were now in control of nearly half of Vovchansk.

The town near the Russian border that had around 17,000 residents before the war and is now the epicentre of fighting.

Drone barrage

“Our guys control about 40 percent of the city. They have cut deep into the defence and knocked out the enemy as far as they could,” said the official, Vitaly Ganchev.

“The northern part of the city has already been completely liberated,” he told Russian state television.

A Ukrainian military spokesman meanwhile told state media that fighting in the Kharkiv region “remains difficult and is changing dynamically”.

But he also said the number of bouts with Russian forces had decreased.

In a rebuke to Ms. Baerbock, the Kremlin said that even if supplies of Western weapons to Ukraine picked up, more deliveries would not change Russia’s dominant position on the front.

Also Read | Russia takes control of village in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, defence ministry says

“It will still not allow the Ukrainian armed forces to somehow change the dynamics on the fronts,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Mr. Zelenskyy has repeatedly called on Ukraine’s allies to provide at least seven more air defence systems, including at least two to protect the Kharkiv region.

Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that Ukraine and its allies will at some point run out of steam, Ms. Baerbock said.

“(But) we have the capacity to hold out,” she said.

Just before Ms. Baerbock arrived, the Ukrainian air force said it had intercepted 28 out of 29 Iranian-designed attack drones launched by Russian forces overnight.

The unmanned aerial vehicles were downed over southern and eastern regions of Ukraine.

The head of the Kharkiv region said a 53-year-old man was wounded by Russian rocket fire that targeted a transport infrastructure facility.

Systematic Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid have crippled the sector and officials in the capital announced rolling power cuts throughout the day on Tuesday to reduce the load on the network.

The national grid operator said Ukraine was importing electricity from Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania and Slovakia to make up a shortfall due to Russian strikes.

Foreign journalists report from an observation point while smoke rises after a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Friday, May 17, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Russian forces were pressing ahead on Friday with their offensive in north-east Ukraine as President Vladimir Putin said there were no current plans to occupy Kharkiv city, the regional capital.

On a trip to China, Mr. Putin said the assault was direct retaliation for Ukrainian shelling of Russia’s border regions and that Moscow was trying to create a “security zone”.

“This is their fault because they have shelled and continue to shell residential neighbourhoods in border areas,” Mr. Putin told reporters, adding there was no intention at this stage to take Kharkiv with its population of over one million about 40 km from the front lines.

Moscow launched the surprise offensive into Ukraine’s north east on May 10, sending thousands of troops across the border and unleashing artillery fire on several settlements, including the almost deserted town of Vovchansk.

Resisting onslaught

Oleg Synegubov, Governor of the Kharkiv region, said Russian forces were trying to surround Vovchansk, which had a pre-war population of around 18,000, and that Ukraine’s forces were “resisting” the Russian onslaught. “The enemy has actually started to destroy the city. It is not just dangerous to be there, but impossible,” Mr. Synegubov said in a briefing.

But he warned Russia was also gaining ground near Lukyantsi, a village much further west that Kyiv pulled back from earlier this week amid heavy fire.

A resident from Vovchansk who fled due to Russian shelling, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, arrive in evacuation centre in Kharkiv, Ukraine on May 13, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Russia pounded over 30 villages and towns in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region after launching a ground offensive in the border region, forcing almost 6,000 to evacuate, the Governor said on Monday.

Ukraine’s General Staff acknowledged on Monday that Russia “currently is achieving tactical success” after driving a wedge into Kyiv’s defences.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Monday that troops had “improved the tactical position and dealt a blow to (Ukrainian) manpower” around border villages including Lyptsi and the town of Vovchansk.

“They are shelling the villages, firing on everything they can,” Sergiy Kryvetchenko, deputy head of the military administration in the village of Lyptsi, told AFP.

“The KABs (guided aerial bombs) are flying. The artillery is flying. Drones. Everything,” he said.

On Friday, Russia began an offensive across its border into the Kharkiv region and later claimed to have taken several villages in the region near the border.

The situation in the Kharkiv region is “complex and dynamically changing”, with Russian troops mounting assaults in various areas, Ukraine’s General Staff said.

Kharkiv regional governor Oleg Synegubov wrote on social media that over the last day, “more than 30” towns and villages “were struck by enemy artillery and mortar attacks”, wounding at least nine people.

Some areas were also bombed by Russian aircraft, Mr. Synegubov added.

A total of 5,762 people have been evacuated from their homes since the start of the offensive, the governor said.

Over the course of Sunday, Russia “carried out 22 assaults” in five border areas, 14 of which were still ongoing, the General Staff said.

The General Staff said fighting was ongoing for the border town of Vovchansk, where Russia was deploying “significant forces”, numbering up to five battalions.

Vovchansk, which previously had a population of 2,500 but now has only 200-300 residents, suffered “massive shelling” on Sunday that hit houses and wounded seven, said Mr. Synegubov.

A 69-year-old man was also wounded in the town of Izyum by detonating ammunition and a woman was injured in a village near the town of Kupiansk.

The city of Kharkiv itself had not been struck over the last 24 hours, however, he said.

‘Expanding’ front line

Mr. Synegubov said on national television that “the grey zone and the front line are expanding” because Russia is “trying to deliberately stretch it, attacking in small groups in new directions”.

The DeepState Telegram channel, which is close to the Ukrainian army, wrote that Russia had taken pockets of territory measuring around 100 square kilometres (39 square miles).

Russia “continues to advance to Vovchansk”, the channel said.

“They are gaining foothold on the outskirts for further entry into the town.”

Russia was also advancing towards the border village of Lyptsi and attempting to enter the nearby village of Glyboke, it said.

Ukraine was mounting “constant fire”, including from drones, “but unfortunately it does not stop them”.

The Russian defence ministry said troops had repelled Ukrainian counterattacks near Glyboke.

Rybar, a Russian Telegram channel with military links, said Moscow’s offensive led to territorial gains because troops took some villages where Russian soldiers already had a presence and others that were “deserted wastelands”.

As of Monday morning, there were no “large-scale breakthroughs of the enemy’s defences”, Rybar said.

Ukrainian military said Russia was also shelling the Sumy and Chernigiv border regions further west.

Firefighters work at a site of a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv, Ukraine on May 10, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Russian forces began a renewed ground assault in Ukraine’s northeast, killing and injuring several people and forcing more than 1,700 civilians to evacuate from the Kharkiv region, officials said on May 11.

Artillery, mortar, and aerial bombardments hit more than 30 different towns and villages, leaving at least three people dead and five others injured, said Kharkiv Gov. Oleh Syniehubov.

Ukraine rushed reinforcements to the Kharkiv region on May 10 to hold off a Russian attempt to breach local defenses, authorities said.

Ukrainian forces also launched a barrage of drones and missiles on May 11 night, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said, with air defense systems downing 21 rockets and 16 drones over Russia’s Belgorod, Kursk and Volgograd regions. One person died in a drone strike in the Belgorod region, and another in the Kursk region, local officials said.

Another strike set ablaze an oil depot in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Luhansk region, killing three people and injuring eight more, Leonid Pasechnik, the region’s Moscow-installed leader said on the messaging app Telegram on May 11.

Russian forces stepped up their bombardment of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in late March. May 10’s attack signaled a tactical switch in the war by Moscow that Ukrainian officials had been expecting for weeks.

Russian military bloggers said the assault could mark the start of a Russian attempt to carve out a “buffer zone” that President Vladimir Putin vowed to create earlier this year to halt frequent Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod and other Russian border regions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed on May 10 evening that Russian forces were expanding their operations. He also called on the country’s Western allies to ensure that promised deliveries of military aid would swiftly reach the front lines.

“It is critical that partners support our warriors and Ukrainian resilience with timely deliveries. Truly timely ones,” he said in a video statement on X. “A package that truly helps is the actual delivery of weapons to Ukraine, rather than just the announcement of a package.”

The Kremlin’s forces have repeatedly sought to exploit Ukraine’s shortages of ammunition and personnel as the flow of Western military aid to Kyiv has tapered off in recent months, with promised new support still yet to arrive.

Ukraine previously said it was aware that Russia was assembling thousands of troops along the northeastern border, close to the Kharkiv and Sumy regions. Intelligence officials also said they had expected an attack there though Russia’s most recent ground offensive had been focused on parts of eastern Ukraine farther south.

While Russia’s gains in the region have so far been limited, analysts at the U.S. think tank Institute of the Study of War described them Friday as “tactically significant.”

They said Russia had only “committed relatively limited manpower to their initial assaults” but that the offensive in Kharkiv “is meant to … (draw) Ukrainian manpower and materiel from other critical sectors of the front in eastern Ukraine.”

The Russian military could also try to cut key supply routes and try to blockade Kharkiv, home to roughly 1.1 million people and only about 30 km south of the border.

In the war’s early days, Russia made a botched attempt to quickly storm Kharkiv but retreated from its outskirts after about a month. In the fall of 2022, seven months later, Ukraine’s army pushed them out of Kharkiv. The bold counterattack helped persuade Western countries that Ukraine could defeat Russia on the battlefield and merited military support.

Ukraine pushed back Russian forces from most of Kharkiv region in late 2022, but Moscow is now back on the offensive there as Kyiv’s troops struggle with ammunition and manpower shortages. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Russia launched a cross-border ground offensive into Ukraine’s northeast Kharkiv region and civilians were being evacuated amid the fighting, Ukrainian officials said on Friday.

Ukraine pushed back Russian forces from most of Kharkiv region in late 2022, but Moscow is now back on the offensive there as Kyiv’s troops struggle with ammunition and manpower shortages.

“At approximately 5.00 a.m. (0200 GMT), the enemy attempted to break through our defence line under the cover of armoured vehicles,” the Ukrainian Defence Ministry said.

Ukraine said that it had repelled Russia’s incursion but that “fighting of varying intensity” was ongoing and that Russia had launched aerial strikes into an area near the border.

A high-ranking Ukrainian military source said Russia had advanced into Ukraine by one kilometre, and was trying to “create a buffer zone” to prevent attacks into Russian territory.

If Russia’s advances are confirmed, it would represent the Kremlin’s biggest land offensive in the region since it sent thousands of troops across the border in February 2022. The Russian Defence Ministry has not provided any comment but Russian military bloggers suggested active fighting was taking place.

A car burns at a site of a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine April 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Russian forces overnight attacked Ukraine with drones and missiles, killing at least six people and wounding 11 more in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, local officials reported.

Governor of the Kharkiv region Oleh Syniehubov said missile strikes on the city damaged residential buildings, a gas station, a kindergarten, a cafe, a shop and cars.

Overall, Russia fired 32 Iranian-made Shahed drones and six missiles at Ukraine overnight, according to the air force commander. Ukrainian air defense forces shot down three cruise missiles and 28 drones, Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk said in a statement. “Russian killers continue to terrorize Ukrainians and attack Kharkiv and other peaceful cities,” he said.

The Russian military has not commented on the strikes, but said that Ukraine on Saturday morning fired Vampire rockets at Russia. All 10 of them were shot down over Russia’s border region of Belgorod by air defense systems, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

On the ground in Ukraine, Russian forces were advancing, and pushing back against them was “difficult,” said Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s armed forces.

Mr. Syrksyi said the situation in the Bakhmut area in the partially occupied eastern Donetsk region was particularly challenging. He said Russian forces are carrying out offensive operations day and night, using assault groups with the support of armored vehicles, as well as assaults on foot.

Fierce battles are taking place east of the town of Chasiv Yar, which Ukraine still controls and which is located near the occupied city of Bakhmut.

Russian forces are trying to break through defensive lines there, Mr. Syrskyi said on the messaging app Telegram, adding that “Chasiv Yar remains under our control, all enemy attempts to break through to the settlement have failed.”

Near Avdiivka, another city in the Donetsk region held by the Russians, the fiercest battles were occurring in Pervomaiskyi and Vodyanyi, according to the official. He also said the situation is tense on the southern and northeastern parts of the front line.