Russia yesterday launched a ground offensive in the Kharkiv region
, in the northeast of Ukraine. This area had not been the target of such attacks since the withdrawal of Kremlin troops from almost the entire Kharkiv region in the face of a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the fall of 2022. If the scale of this new Russian operation is not yet clear last night, Ukraine had been fearing an attack in the region for weeks. Here is a map to visualize the attacks of the last 24 hours.
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The Ukrainian General Staff indicated that Russia had carried out five ground attacks near the towns of Krasné, Morokhovets and Oliinykové, bordering Russia, as well as a little further east near that of Gatyshche. Several Russian air attacks have targeted targets in the area, including the larger town of Vovchansk, also on the border and populated by 3,000 inhabitants. Moscow wants to create a “buffer zone” in the regions of Kharkiv and Sumy to prevent kyiv from hitting the region of Belgorod, in Russia, which is very regularly targeted.
Earlier, in the middle of the day, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry announced that the enemy had tried around 5 a.m. to “break through” the defense lines “using armored vehicles”. The ministry assured that these assaults had been “repulsed” but that “fighting of various intensities” continued and that reserve units had been deployed to “reinforce the defense” of the area.
According to the local prosecutor’s office, at least two civilians were killed by strikes and four others injured during the day in Vovchansk, adding that another civilian was killed during a strike in the town of Cherkaski Tychky, north of Kharkiv . Evacuations of civilians were ordered around Vovchansk. Two civilians were also killed by an enemy artillery strike near the town of Pokrovsk, still in the Donetsk region.
The Russian offensive intensifies
Currently, Russia occupies 17.53% of Ukraine’s territory compared to 7% before the start of the Russian invasion at the end of February 2022. Since the end of February 2024, the Russian army has been on the offensive but the Territory gains over one month are however minimal, with only 55 km² conquered by the Russians in one month in March 2024 and 86 km² in April 2024.