Ukraine sent reinforcements to its northern border on Friday after Russian forces tried to breach Ukrainian lines along several sectors, putting new pressure on forces already spread thin along the front. The battle was 600 miles long.
The Russian attacks began around 5 a.m. Friday with massive shelling and bombing of Ukrainian positions, followed by armored convoys attempting to penetrate several points along the border, according to statement from the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
“As of now, these attacks have been repelled and battles of varying intensity are ongoing,” the ministry said. “To strengthen the defense in this sector of the front, reserve units have been deployed.”
The scope and purpose of Russia’s border incursions remain unclear. Military analysts say Russia may be trying to force Ukraine to use precious resources to defend the region like Russia does. attack in eastern Ukraine is strengthening.
But a senior Ukrainian commander, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the current fighting situation, said Friday that the Russian attacks went beyond probing or information gathering. Intelligence. The commander called this the beginning of an offensive campaign, adding that the Kremlin’s immediate goal appeared to be to create a buffer zone along the border.
A Ukrainian official familiar with the war said that after heavy fighting raged through the night and into the morning, smaller skirmishes continued into the evening as Russia sought to consolidate control. for some small villages located right on the border. While few civilians remained in the hit areas, at least one resident in the town of Vovchansk was killed in the shelling and several others were injured, local officials said.
Opening a new combat zone will be a major challenge for Ukraine. It is unclear how deep Ukraine’s defenses on the border have extended, how well they are mobilized, and how they will hold out if Russia conducts sustained offensive operations in this direction.
New deliveries of powerful Western weapons are on the way, but commanders say they have not arrived in sufficient numbers to make a significant impact. Meanwhile, military analysts say Russia will likely try to take advantage of the time before the weapons take effect to promote new advances.
Ukrainian officials and Western military analysts say Moscow may lack the combat power to take Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, 20 miles from the Russian border. On Friday, a senior US military official described Russia’s new advances as perhaps more exploratory than a public announcement, but acknowledged that the “fog of war” was there. made the situation gloomy.
“Russia doubts it has enough force to take Kharkiv,” said Michael Kofman, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “The attack was most likely aimed at consolidating and creating a so-called buffer zone, straining Ukraine’s defense forces and drawing manpower from other areas of the front line.”
Russian officials have not commented on the incursions.
It is unclear whether Russia has captured any territory. Ukraine’s senior commander said Kyiv forces held off a Russian attack in the direction of a village called Lyptsi, less than a mile from the border in the Kharkiv region. That area is currently considered a gray zone, meaning the fighting is too intense and the situation is too fluid to say who controls the land.
For Russia, even establishing a bridgehead across the border could make Kharkiv a target for artillery, allowing the military to step up efforts to make the city uninhabitable. And it would help create a buffer zone that would allow Russia to prepare for the deployment of personnel and weapons.
It would also allow Russia to protect towns and cities across the border from Ukrainian shelling.
Kharkiv regional authorities urged people in villages near the border to evacuate. Some places, like Vovchansk, which was heavily shelled throughout the war, were nearly empty for months.
A doctor at a hospital in Vovchansk, about four miles from the Russian border, said fighting was raging throughout the small town. “We are currently evacuating everyone from the hospital,” he said, asking that his name not be used out of concern for his safety. “They are attacking very hard and destroying everything.”
He said Ukrainian soldiers appeared to be stopping the advance on the town but that Russian troops were attacking tanks, armored fighting vehicles and warplanes. Many small villages in the border area have been evacuated for months as shelling has increased, and Ukrainian officials said Friday those efforts were continuing.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, during a briefing in Kyiv with his Slovak counterpart, Zuzana Caputova, said that Russian forces had encountered “our troops, brigades and artillery”, adding: “There was a The battle was fierce in this direction – we met them with fire.” .”
Russian forces failed to take the city of Kharkiv in the first weeks of the war and were almost completely driven from the area in a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the fall of 2022. Hundreds of thousands fled from the city returned to their homes and begin to rebuild their lives.
But in recent months, Russia has stepped up its bombardment of the city, targeting it almost daily with missiles, drones and powerful guided bombs aimed at energy infrastructure, industries important industrial and residential areas.
At the same time, Russia has increasingly increased the number of soldiers deployed to the border.
Ukraine’s military has responded by beefing up defenses along large swaths of the border and residents have reported seeing an influx of troops around the Kharkiv and Sumy borders.
Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, the nation’s top military commander, said recently that the Russians may be planning new offensive operations but that he is confident in Ukraine’s defense forces along the border, while noted that the army once fought the Russians in the Kharkiv region. And win.
Liubov Sholudko contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine.
