Advertising
Supported by
Attacks on the northeastern city of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region continued on Sunday.
Send a story to any friend.
As a subscriber, you have 10 gift pieces to offer per month. Everyone can read what you share.
By Matthew Mpoke Bigg, Carlotta Gall and Oleksandr Chubko
Months after Russian foot soldiers were driven out of Kupyansk, the Ukrainian government is stepping up efforts to evacuate civilians from the town in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region amid relentless Russian bombardment.
Ukrainian troops defeated Russian forces across much of the Kharkiv region when they introduced a counteroffensive in September that ended months of profession and helped turn the momentum of the conflict in Kiev’s favor.
But since then, Moscow’s forces have prevented Ukraine from restoring life in the recaptured areas. Russian troops continued to shell portions of the region near the front lines, Kupyansk added, with artillery.
In addition to affecting civilians, the strikes prevent Ukraine from redeploying troops stationed in those spaces to other parts of the battlefield, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that its forces had attacked Ukrainian army positions around Kupiansk, and local Ukrainians said on Sunday that there were shelling in the area.
Ukraine’s General Staff, which is to blame for the army’s strategy, said in an overnight update on Sunday that Russian forces were conducting “indiscriminate shelling of settlements. “
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the country’s staff who are restoring strength and helping others in need, bringing rescuers to the Kharkiv region and other frontline areas.
“Together, in unity, we will achieve victory,” he said in his speech Sunday night.
Kupyansk is experiencing the “hottest” fighting in the region, Oleh Syniehubov, head of Ukraine’s regional military administration, said Saturday. He suggested to all the remaining citizens that they leave.
“The enemy forces tirelessly seek to attack the positions of our forces. That’s why we announced a mandatory evacuation,” Mr. Syniehubov said on national television, adding that the local government and volunteer teams were looking to move others to safer places in the region.
The streets of Kupyansk were largely abandoned Friday when a team of New York Times reporters visited, and the damage caused by recent Russian artillery movements was visible. Some buildings that had remained intact when Ukrainian forces recaptured the city in September are now marked by explosions. Houses and department stores were condemned and some other people boarded a bus to Kharkiv.
A kiosk on Main Street reduced to a piece of mutilated metal, and the floor in front of the hospital littered with debris and damaged windows. Deep craters on the front indicated that the construction had been hit by missiles. Next to it, a sandbagged building that had been used as a traffic police station was abandoned.
Many Ukrainians living near the front lines of the country have fled the fighting, but others have defied government evacuation calls despite the danger. In many places, those who have chosen to stay are elderly and have health problems. Others said they were worried about a lack of economic confidence if they had to move.
The heaviest fighting in recent weeks has occurred near the town of Bakhmut, about 80 miles southeast of Kupyansk. But the Ukrainian government has been reporting for days an intensification of bombing in the Kharkiv region, as well as in the south.
On Saturday, Zelensky named the Kharkiv region as one of many places suffering “brutal” attacks “every day, every night. “
“In less than two and a half months, more than 40 enemy missiles have already hit Kharkiv,” he said, referring to the city of Kharkiv, the regional capital, which Russian forces tried and failed to capture at the start of their major attack. Scale deployment. The invasion of the country last year.
Zelensky said Russia had all kinds of weapons, “missiles and artillery, drones and mortars,” with one purpose: “to destroy life and leave nothing human. “
He also called on the cities of the Donbass region, which he said “Russia only to burn. “
The focal point of Moscow’s push to capture the entire Donbass region in eastern Ukraine was positioned around the besieged city of Bakhmut, where Russian forces have made gains in recent weeks. TV on Saturday clashes were taking place on the outskirts of the town as well as in some of its streets.
On the eastern front, Russia continued to attack positions near Bakhmut and other parts of eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian military said Sunday in its morning update. Shelling near the town of Avdiivka has killed 3 civilians in recent days, according to Vitaliy Barabash. , the head of the city army administration. He said on television that villages were “being razed to the ground” by Russian fire.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner paramilitary organization that amid Russia’s attack on Bakhmut, said the scenario there was “difficult, very difficult” and that Ukrainians were “eating every meter. “
“Ukrainians are sending reservations,” he said in an audio clip on the Telegram messaging service.
Elsewhere, Russian strikes in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine killed at least 3 civilians and wounded 3 others on Saturday, according to Ukrainian officials. Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the regional military administration, said in a message on the Telegram messaging app that Russia had fired 156 projectiles during the day beyond in the region. Russian moves in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia also broke a commercial facility and fuel pipeline.
“The Russian bombing claimed the lives of the citizens of Kherson who had just gone to a store to buy groceries,” Zelensky said in his late-night speech. “In Zaporizhzhia, a Russian missile hit the city’s survival facility,” he added, offering details.
Ukrainian officials and army analysts have warned that the Zaporizhzhia region could be in the midst of a long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive in the coming weeks as part of an attempt by Kiev forces to advance towards the port of the city of Melitopol, held through Russia.
In anticipation of such a move, “Russian forces continue to identify fortifications in Zaporizhzhia,” according to the Institute of War Studies, which said it was likely an attempt at safer roads leading to Tokmak, a logistics hub near Melitopol.
The capture of territory around Melitopol may allow Ukrainian forces to cut a Russian line stretching from the Crimean peninsula to the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine.
Vivek Shankar contributed to the report.
Advertising