Ukraine rushed reinforcements to its northern border on Friday after Russian forces tried to break through Ukrainian lines along several sections, putting new pressure on forces already stretched across a 900-kilometre front.
The Russian attacks began around 5 a.m. Friday with massive shelling and aerial bombardment of Ukrainian positions, followed by armored columns trying to penetrate at several points along the border, according to reports. a statement of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
“As of now, these attacks have been repulsed and fighting of varying intensity is ongoing,” the ministry said. “Reserve units have been deployed to strengthen the defense in this sector of the front.”
The scale and intent of the Russian border raids remained unclear. Military analysts have said that Russia may be trying to force Ukraine to devote valuable resources to defending the region, as Russia is doing attacks in eastern Ukraine are intensifying.
But a senior Ukrainian commander, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the current state of the battle, said Friday that the Russian attacks went beyond research or intelligence gathering. The commander called it the start of an offensive operation, adding that the Kremlin's immediate goal appeared to be to create a buffer zone along the border.
After heavy fighting took place overnight and into the morning, smaller skirmishes continued into the evening as Russia tried to consolidate control over several small villages on the border, a Ukrainian official familiar with the fighting said. Although few civilians remain in the areas that were attacked, at least one resident of the city of Vovchansk was killed in shelling, local officials said, and several more were injured.
The opening of a new combat zone would represent a major challenge for Ukraine. It was unclear how deep the Ukrainian border defenses extended, how well they were manned, and how they would hold up if Russia were to undertake sustained offensive operations in this direction.
New deliveries of powerful Western weapons are on their way, but commanders say they have not arrived in numbers that would have a significant impact. In the meantime, military analysts have said, Russia will likely try to take advantage of the period before the weapons come into effect to make new progress.
Ukrainian officials and Western military analysts have said Moscow likely does not have the combat power to take Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, which is 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the Russian border. On Friday, a senior U.S. military official described the new Russian advance as perhaps more of a probing than a full-on press, but acknowledged that the “fog of war” there made the situation murky.
“Russia undoubtedly has the forces to take Kharkiv,” said Michael Kofman, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasian program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “It is more likely that the attack will serve as a repair attempt and to create a so-called buffer zone, putting pressure on Ukrainian defenses and drawing manpower from other parts of the front line.”
Russian officials have not commented on the raids.
It was unclear whether Russia had conquered any territory. The senior Ukrainian commander said Kiev's forces had stopped one Russian attack toward a village called Lyptsi, less than a mile from the border in the Kharkov region. That area was now considered a gray zone, meaning the fighting was too fierce and the situation too fluid to say who was in control of the country.
For Russia, even establishing a bridgehead across the border could expose the city of Kharkov to artillery, allowing troops to step up their efforts to make the city unlivable. And it would help create a buffer zone that would provide Russia with a staging post for deploying personnel and weapons.
It would also allow Russia to protect towns and cities across the border from Ukrainian shelling.
The Kharkiv regional administration called on people from villages close to the border to evacuate. Some, like Vovchansk, which was heavily shelled during the war, have been virtually empty for months.
A doctor at the hospital in Vovchansk, about four miles from the Russian border, said heavy fighting raged throughout the small town. “We are currently evacuating people from the hospital,” he said, asking that his name not be used because he feared for his safety. “They hit very hard and destroy everything.”
He said Ukrainian soldiers appeared to prevent an advance on the city, but the Russians attacked tanks, armored fighting vehicles and fighter jets. Many of the small villages in the border regions have been evacuated for months as the shelling intensified. Ukrainian officials said Friday that these efforts are continuing.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a briefing in Kiev with his Slovak counterpart Zuzana Caputova that the Russian armed forces were confronted with “our troops, brigades and artillery”, adding: “There is a fierce battle going on in this direction – we have them answered with fire. .”
Russian forces failed to capture the city of Kharkov in the first weeks of the war and were almost completely expelled from the region in the fall of 2022 during a Ukrainian counter-offensive. Hundreds of thousands of people who fled the city returned to their homes and started to rebuild their lives.
But in recent months Russia has stepped up its bombing of the city, targeting it almost daily with missiles, drones and powerful guided bombs that target energy infrastructure, key industries and residential areas.
At the same time, Russia has increased the number of soldiers it has moved to the border.
The Ukrainian military has responded by strengthening its defenses along large parts of the border, and residents have reported seeing an influx of troops around the borders of Kharkov and Sumy.
General Oleksandr Syrsky, the country's top military commander, recently said that the Russians were likely to plan new offensive operations but that he had confidence in Ukrainian defenses along the border, noting that the military had already fought the Russians once fought in the Kharkov region. and won.
Liubov Sholudko reported from Kiev.