Russia says its troops have taken five villages and the governor of the Kharkiv region says he will take more as fierce fighting continues.
But Nazar Volochyn, a spokesman for the Ukrainian army in the east, insists Moscow’s troops are confined to those villages.
“The enemy is contained in the gray zone and is expanding,” he said in an interview on Ukrainian television, according to the Kiev Independent.
The “grey zone” refers to the villages of Borysivka, Ohirtseve, Pylna and Strilecha, all of which lie on the border with Russia’s Belgorod region.
Russian officials said they had also captured the village of Pletenivka.
As we reported earlier, the governor of Kharkiv says that this continues in all the villages that Russia has already claimed to have taken.
The governor of Kharkiv adds that 2,500 more people have been evacuated from the Kharkiv danger zone, up from 1,775 this morning.
Syniehubov said the regional government continues to evacuate civilians from areas where fighting continues.
And while the Russian Defense Ministry earlier said its forces had taken five border villages in the Kharkiv region, Syniehubov says clashes continue in all five villages.
“At the moment, the enemy continues to exert pressure in the north of our region. Our forces have repelled the attacks,” he said at his press conference.
Senior Ukrainian officials have continually said that Russia does not have the capacity to effectively launch an operation to capture the city of Kharkiv, home to 1. 3 million people.
But analysts suggest that Putin probably wouldn’t capture the entire city, but would better protect the Russian border and disperse the Ukrainian army.
Our security and defense editor, Deborah Haynes, reports from a residential complex that has just been hit by a Russian strike in Vovchansk.
She is near a burning building and says local citizens she spoke to fear the fire could spread to other residential buildings as well.
One of the citizens of the destroyed block, who had been injured in the leg by the explosion, spoke to Haynes.
“She doesn’t know what to do; she’s very confused,” Haynes says. “It’s a scene of chaos and terror. “
She says the rest of the city is also “largely destroyed,” adding that explosions can still be heard nearby.
Haynes adds that the city is still “under attack. “
The Russians continue their attacks in Kharkiv, the region’s governor said.
Oleh Syniehubov said President Putin’s troops still have to advance after having traveled up to 1 kilometer yesterday.
Heavy fighting is raging in three villages near the Ukrainian border, he added.
His comments came shortly after the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that its forces had taken five border villages in the Kharkiv region.
Ukraine has yet to comment on Russia’s claims.
The British Ministry of Defense has highlighted reports suggesting that a Russian fighter jet dropped a bomb on a civilian domain in Belgorod.
The intelligence update is about an incident that occurred on May 4, not the overnight drone attack in Belgorod that we talked about earlier.
The saying:
“A Russian fighter jet reportedly dropped a FAB-500 munition on a civilian domain in Belgorod, Russia, on May 4, 2024.
“Belgorod Regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov showed the explosion and the injured on Belgorod’s Razdobarkina Street, identifying the cause.
“30 houses and 10 cars were damaged and another five people required hospital treatment, illustrating the destructive force of the munitions.
“This is not an isolated incident. On 18 February, a FAB-250 crashed on Soloti in the Belgorod region, prompting the evacuation of 150 inhabitants.
“Media reports recommend that these dumps are quite common, with 20 stray munitions dumped in the Belgorod region alone between March and April 2024.
“These cases involve Russia’s continued inability to effectively use its munitions against targets. Such mistakes have destructive and fatal consequences for the Russian population. “
The Russian Defense Ministry says its forces have taken five border villages in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region since its marvelous attack began yesterday.
The ministry says Russian forces have taken the villages of Pletenivka, Ohirtseve, Borysivka, Pylna and Strilechna, all of which lie on the border with Russia’s Belgorod region.
At a news conference, he also said Russian troops had taken the village of Keramik in the eastern Donetsk region, where Moscow has made slow but steady advances in months.
Ukrainian officials have yet to comment on the Russian Defense Ministry’s claims.
Our military analyst Sean Bell on the brutal Russian offensive in Kharkiv, which prompted mass evacuations.
It has been described as a wonderful attack, but Bell says Ukraine has been wary for several months of a possible Russian attack in the region.
“So it’s not a general surprise,” he says. But this Russian attack is not just a minor matter: it is a coordinated attack.
“They employed air power, bombs, artillery shells, multiple rocket launch systems, and infantry. “
He says the attack was obviously aimed at “probing Ukrainian defenses” and that Russia has already made progress, with between 30,000 and 50,000 troops in the region.
Why did Russia open a front in the war?
While Bell says this is something only President Putin can answer with certainty, he believes there are two most likely reasons for the new Russian attack.
Firstly, the Russian border town of Belgorod is a logistics center for Russian army activity and is attacked with artillery from Ukrainian territory.
As we saw in our previous article, Russia said Ukraine attacked Belgorod last night, killing one man and wounding another in a drone strike.
President Putin has long promised to create a buffer zone to push Ukrainian forces out of artillery range, which would restrict attacks on the border town, Bell says.
Second, while top analysts say Russia would struggle to capture Kharkiv, the attack forces Ukraine to spread its limited resources across a broader front, making it more vulnerable to additional attacks, he adds.
We told you this morning that Russia said it shot down 21 Ukrainian rockets and drones overnight in its Belgorod, Kursk and Volgograd regions.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said one man was killed and another wounded after a Ukrainian drone hit a truck parked in the border village of Novostroyevka-Pervaya.
The Belgorod region borders Ukraine’s Kharkiv region and has been subject to normal attacks since the start of the war.
The regional governor of Kharkiv reported this morning on Telegram, where he indicated how many civilians have fled since yesterday’s Russian attack.
Ukraine’s second-largest city has seen a total of 1,775 more people evacuated, Oleg Sinegubov said.
1,048 of them from Chuhuiv district, where Vovchansk is located. As we said before, Vovchansk has about 3,000 inhabitants.
He said another 440 people were evacuated from the Kharkiv district, which surrounds the city of Kharkiv, and 12 from the Bohodukhiv district, northwest of Kharkiv.
He added that another 275 people were evacuated by volunteers from the region.
By Deborah Haynes, Security & Defense Editor
Smoke hung in the air on the road leading to the northeastern Ukrainian border town of Vovchansk after a wonderful Russian offensive.
The woods framing the street have been set ablaze amid the violent bombardment.
Sky News followed a rescue team as they rushed to Vovchansk in a white van to evacuate residents, amid fears of a wider attack from Moscow.
The streets of the part of the city we entered were for the most part deserted.
We parked in a bungalow complex.
Halfway through, there was an organization of five elders gathered around a bench. They seemed to be in no hurry to flee, despite the danger and the government’s warnings to the city’s roughly 3,000 inhabitants.
Read here. . .