Moscow’s forces have captured five villages in a new ground attack in northeastern Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said, as journalists in the town of Vovchansk described several buildings destroyed after the raids Russian air forces.
Ukrainian officials did not confirm Saturday whether Russia had taken the villages, which lie in a disputed “gray zone” on the border of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region and Russia.
Ukrainian journalists reported that the villages of Borysivka, Ohirtseve, Pylna and Strilecha were captured by Russian troops on Friday.
Russia said the village of Pletenivka had also been taken.
In a statement Saturday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said fighting continued in Strilecha and Pletenivka, as well as in Krasne, Morokhovets, Oliinykove, Lukyantsi and Hatyshche.
“Our troops are carrying out counterattacks there for the second day, protecting Ukrainian territory,” he said.
On Friday, the Institute for the Study of War said geotagged images confirmed at least one of the villages had been taken. The Washington-based think tank called recent Russian advances “tactically significant.”
The new attack on the region forced more than 1,700 civilians residing in settlements close to the fighting to flee, according to Ukrainian authorities. It comes after Russia stepped up attacks in March targeting energy infrastructure and settlements, which analysts say was a concerted effort by Moscow to create conditions for an offensive.
On Saturday, Russia continued to hit Vovchansk with air raids and rockets as police and volunteers rushed to evacuate residents. At least 20 people were evacuated to a neighboring village. Police said 900 people had been evacuated the day before.
Journalists from the Associated Press news agency who accompanied an evacuation team described empty streets with many buildings destroyed and others set on fire. The road was littered with newly formed craters and the town was covered in dust and shrapnel with the smell of heavy gunpowder in the air. Mushroom clouds of smoke rose across the horizon as Russian jets carried out multiple air attacks.
AP journalists witnessed nine air attacks during the three hours they were there.
“The situation in Vovchansk and settlements along the border (with Russia) is incredibly difficult. Constant air attacks are carried out, strikes of multiple rocket systems, artillery strikes,” said Tamaz Hambarashvili, head of the Vovchansk military administration.
“For the second day in a row, we have evacuated everyone in our community who wants to,” he said.
“I think they are destroying the city to drive out the (local) population, to make sure there are no more armies, no one. To create a “gray zone”.
The recent Russian offensive in Kharkiv seeks to exploit ammo shortage ahead of promised western supplies can reach the front line and pin down Ukrainian forces in the northeast and keep them away from the ongoing heavy fighting in the Donetsk region where Moscow’s troops are gaining ground, analysts say.
Russian military bloggers said the assault could mark the start of a Russian attempt to create a “buffer zone” that President Vladimir Putin pledged to create earlier this year to stop frequent Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod and other Russian border regions.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, said Saturday that a woman was killed and 29 people injured, including a child, in shelling by Ukrainian armed forces.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials have downplayed Russian claims regarding the captured territory, with reinforcements dispatched to the Kharkiv region to hold back Russian forces.
On Telegram, Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said heavy fighting continued in areas around Borysivka, Ohirtseve, Pylna and Oliinykove, but the situation was under control and there was no threat land assault on the city of Kharkiv.
At the same time, artillery, mortar and aerial bombardments hit more than 30 different towns and villages in the region on Saturday, killing at least three people and injuring five others, Syniehubov said.
