Ukraine’s army faces a “critical” situation in the country’s northeast, facing a shortage of troops as it tries to repel a Russian offensive that has been advancing for several days, a top Ukrainian general said Monday.
Russian troops crossed the border last week to open a new line of attack near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city after kyiv, capturing at least nine settlements and villages and forcing thousands of civilians to flee.
“The situation is critical,” Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, said in a video call from a bunker in Kharkiv. “Every hour this situation becomes critical.”
His grim observation echoed that of other Ukrainian officers in recent days that the country’s military prospects were dwindling. In addition to being outnumbered, the Ukrainians face a severe shortage of weapons, particularly artillery ammunition, and weapons from the United States, worth $60.8 billion . approved three weeks ago after months of gridlock in Congress – is just starting to happen.
Like most Ukrainian officials and military experts, General Budanov said he believed Russian attacks in the northeast were aimed at depleting Ukraine’s already thin reserves of soldiers and diverting them from fighting elsewhere.
This is exactly what is happening now, he admitted. He said the Ukrainian military was trying to redirect troops from other areas of the front line to bolster its defenses in the northeast, but it had been difficult to find personnel.
“All our forces are either here or in Chasiv Yar,” he said, referring to a A Ukrainian stronghold located about 200 kilometers further south that Russian troops have attacked in recent weeks.. “I used everything we had. Unfortunately, we don’t have anyone else in reserve.
General Budanov believes that Ukrainian forces will be able to consolidate their lines and stabilize the front in the coming days. But he expects Russia to launch a new attack further north from Kharkiv, in the Sumy region.
Fighting raged Monday on the outskirts of Vovchansk, a small town about eight kilometers from the Ukrainian-Russian border, northeast of Kharkiv. Russian airstrikes were pounding the city, according to Denys Yaroslavsky, a lieutenant commanding a unit now fighting there.
“They drop five to seven bombs every three minutes,” Lt. Yaroslavsky said in a telephone interview Monday morning.
Vovchansk had around 17,000 inhabitants before the war and the local authorities were having difficulty evacuating the remaining 200 to 300 inhabitants. Hryhoriy Shcherban, a volunteer who was in Vovchansk on Monday morning, said he had received more than 200 evacuation requests overnight.
“We drive around trying to find the addresses. Russia is bombing the escape route,” he said. “We hear explosions all the time. »
The advance on Vovchansk follows weeks of warnings from Ukrainian officials that Russia was massing its forces on the border in a bid to launch a new offensive in the northeast. These warnings became a reality early Friday morning, when Russian troops crossed the border along two main lines – one immediately north of Kharkiv and the other about 12 miles east, around Vovchansk.
Russian forces have so far managed to penetrate around eight kilometers inside Ukrainian territory and seize around 50 square kilometers of territory, according to battlefield online maps published by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.
“The enemy is currently achieving tactical success,” the Ukrainian General Staff acknowledged in a statement. statement early Monday. He added later today that Russian forces had moved closer to another settlement, Lukyantsi.
In a possible sign of Ukraine’s struggles on the battlefield, the Ukrainian commander responsible for the northeastern front was removed and replaced on Monday, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Military experts and Ukrainian officials say that so far Russian troops have advanced mainly through lightly defended and largely depopulated territory, explaining their relatively rapid advance. The border in northeastern Ukraine was subject to regular Russian bombardment throughout the war, they note, which made it difficult to establish fortified positions and caused many civilians to flee.
However, Russian forces are approaching more populated areas and fighting could intensify. Local authorities have already evacuated nearly 6,000 people since Friday, according to Oleh Syniehubovhead of the military administration of the Kharkiv region.
“It’s hell there,” said Tetyana Polyakova, evacuated from Vovchansk overnight from Friday to Saturday, describing the incessant shelling of the city. “Believe me, I have seen it all after living in Vovchansk since the start of the war. I saw the bombings. I’ve seen it all, but I’ve never seen this.
The front line in the region is shifting rapidly, leaving many settlements in what Ukrainian officials have called the “gray zone” – the contested areas between Ukrainian and Russian positions.
Ukrainian civilians said Monday that fighting broke out near Lyptsi, a village north of Kharkiv, suggesting Russian forces may have advanced to within 10 miles of the city.
“We ran as fast as we could, because we could hear small arms fire,” said Krystyna Gavran, 32, catching her breath in Kharkiv after an evacuation mission to Lyptsi. She estimated that there were fewer than 100 people left in the village, which had a population of 4,000 before the war.
General Boudanov said the Russians’ goal in the northeast was to sow panic and confusion in the region. “At the moment our task is to stabilize the line, and then start pushing them back across the border,” he said, adding that an influx of Ukrainian reserves had managed to “partially disrupt their plans.
It remains to be seen whether these troop movements will weaken Ukrainian defenses in other parts of the front line.
Russia’s main goal, according to Franz-Stefan Gady, a Vienna-based military analyst, is to keep forces away from Chassiv Yar, a strategically high town where Ukrainians have been fighting for weeks to repel a Russian attack. It is a key element in defending the Ukrainian-controlled part of the southeastern Donbass region that Russia hopes to conquer.
Pasi Paroinen, an analyst with the Black Bird Group, a Finland-based organization that analyzes satellite images and social media content of the battlefield, said Ukraine had sent reinforcements to the northeast from units that had recently fought at Chasiv Yar, such as the 92nd Assault Brigade.
But Mr. Paroinen noted that it was possible that Ukraine had drawn on elements of the brigade that rested in Kharkiv, its original garrison, rather than exhausting Chasiv Yar’s defenses.
Military analysts say Russia has not yet committed large numbers of troops to the offensive – probably only a few thousand troops – and that much will depend on Moscow’s next move.
With the intensification of fighting in the region, cross-border firing is likely to intensify. Russian authorities announced Monday that Ukrainian shelling had killed 19 civilians in Russia’s Belgorod region, across the border from Kharkiv.
In a particularly deadly episode, the The Russian Defense Ministry said Fragments of an intercepted Ukrainian missile struck an apartment building in the region on Sunday. Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of Belgorod, said 15 bodies had been found in the rubble. The claims could not be independently verified; Ukrainian officials have denied shooting into residential areas.
General Budanov said he expected the attacks in the Kharkiv region to last another three or four days, after which Russian forces were expected to launch a strong offensive towards Sumy, a city about 90 miles away. northwest of Kharkiv. Ukrainian officials have previously said Russia has massed troops across the border from Sumy.
Pavlo Velycho, a Ukrainian officer operating near the Russian border in the Sumy region, said Russian shelling on the outskirts of Sumy had recently intensified.
“I don’t know at all if that means anything, because those places were often bombed anyway,” Mr. Velycho said. “In any case, we are in full combat preparation.”
Emile Ducke contributed reporting from Kharkiv
