Kyiv, Ukraine (AFP) – Russian forces are withdrawing from the vicinity of Ukraine’s second-largest city after weeks of bombardment, the Ukrainian military said on Saturday, as Kyiv and Moscow’s forces fought a fierce battle. In the heart of the country’s eastern industrial region.
Ukraine’s General Staff said Russian forces were withdrawing from the northeastern city of Kharkiv and focusing on guarding supply routes, while firing mortars, artillery and air strikes in eastern Donetsk province in order to “drain Ukrainian forces and destroy fortifications”.
Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said Ukraine was “entering a new – protracted – phase of the war”.
Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Ukrainians They were doing their best to drive out the invaders and that the outcome of the war would depend on support from Europe and other allies.
“No one today can predict how long this war will last,” Zelensky said in his video night speech late Friday.
In a show of support, a US Senate delegation led by minority leader Mitch McConnell met with the Ukrainian president on Saturday in Kyiv. A video posted to Zelenskyy’s Telegram account showed McConnell, who represents Kentucky, and fellow Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine, John Barrasso of Wyoming and John Cornyn of Texas.
Their trip comes after another Kentucky senator, Rand Paul, blocked until next week Senate approval of an additional $40 billion to help Ukraine and its allies withstand the three-month-old Russian invasion.
After failing to capture Kyiv in the wake of the February 24 invasion, President Vladimir Putin has shifted his focus east to Donbass, an industrial region where Ukraine has been fighting Moscow-backed separatists since 2014.
The Russian offensive aims to encircle the more experienced and better-equipped Ukrainian forces, deployed in the east, and capture the parts of Donbass still under Ukrainian control.
Air strikes and artillery bombardment make it too dangerous for journalists to move in the east, hampering efforts to get a full picture of the fighting. But it appears to have slashed back and forth without major breakthroughs on either side.
Russia captured some Donbass villages and towns, including Robyzhny, which had a pre-war population of about 55,000.
Zelensky said Ukrainian forces had also made progress in the east, retaking six towns or villages in the past day.
The city of Kharkiv, close to the Russian border and only 80 kilometers southwest of the Russian city of Belgorod, has witnessed intense bombardment for weeks. The largely Russian-speaking city with a pre-war population of 1.4 million was a major Russian military target earlier in the war, when Moscow hoped to capture and control the major cities.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said Ukraine “appears to have won the Battle of Kharkiv”. “Ukrainian forces prevented Russian forces from encircling Kharkiv, let alone capturing it, and then drove them out from all parts of the city, as they did with Russian forces trying to capture Kyiv.”
Regional Governor Oleh Senegubov said via messaging app Telegram that there had been no bombing attacks on Kharkiv in the past day.
He added that Ukraine launched a counterattack near Izyum, a city 125 kilometers (78 miles) south of Kharkiv, which Russia has controlled since at least the beginning of April.
Fighting was fierce on the Seversky Donets River near the city of Severodonetsk, Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said, as Ukraine launched counterattacks but failed to stop Russia’s advance.
“The fate of a large part of the Ukrainian army is decided – there are about 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers,” he said.
But Ukrainian and British officials said Russian forces suffered heavy losses in a Ukrainian attack that destroyed a buoyant bridge they were using to try to cross the same river in the town of Belhorivka.
Britain’s MoD said Russia had lost “significant maneuverable armored elements” from at least one tactical battalion in the offensive. A Russian tactical battalion consists of about 1,000 soldiers.
The ministry said the perilous crossing of the river was a sign of “the pressure on Russian leaders to advance their operations in eastern Ukraine”.
In his video address, Zelensky warned that the war is causing a worldwide food crisis as Russia prevents Ukrainian grain from leaving port.
Group of Seven Leading Economies He echoed this, saying on Saturday that “Russia’s war of aggression has spawned one of the most severe food and energy crises in modern history, which now threatens the most vulnerable throughout the world.”
Putin launched the war in Ukraine with the aim of thwarting NATO expansion in Eastern Europe.
But the invasion made other countries along Russia’s flank fear they might be next, and this week Finland’s president and prime minister said they would prefer to seek NATO membership. Officials in Sweden are expected to announce their decision Sunday on whether to apply to join the Western military alliance.
In a phone call on Saturday, Putin informed Finnish President Sauli Niinistö That there are no threats to Finland’s security and that joining NATO would be a “mistake” and “negatively affect Russian-Finnish relations”.
The Kremlin said the two leaders had a “frank exchange of views.”
Niinisto said the discussion “was direct and unambiguous and was held without exaggeration. Avoiding tensions was considered important.”
Russia’s response to Finland and Sweden’s moves has so far been muted, although Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said on Saturday that their accession to NATO would heighten security tensions in the Arctic, “turning it into an arena of military competition”.
Russian energy group Inter RAO halted electricity deliveries to Finland on Saturday, according to a statement from the Finnish national electric grid operator. But only about 10% of Finland’s electricity comes from Russia, and the authorities did not expect a shortage.
Possible bids for the Nordic countries were called into question On Friday, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that his country “has no favorable opinion”.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is scheduled to meet his NATO counterparts, including Turkey’s foreign minister, this weekend in Germany.
In other developments:
Ukrainian fighters holed up in a steel mill in the devastated southern port of Mariupol have faced constant attacks on the city’s last bastion of resistance. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshuk said that the authorities are negotiating the evacuation of 60 seriously wounded soldiers, but Russia has not agreed to evacuate all the injured fighters in the steel plants, who number in the hundreds.
– An adviser to Mariupol Mayor Petro Andryushenko said via Telegram that a convoy of 500 to 1,000 vehicles carrying civilians from the city was allowed to enter Ukraine-controlled territory and headed to Zaporizhia, the first major city outside the front lines.
– Deputy Speaker of the Russian Parliament, Anna Kuznetsova, visited Kherson, the region bordering the Black Sea, which Russia has controlled since the beginning of the war. Russia has set up a pro-Moscow regional administration, and Britain’s Ministry of Defense has said Russia may hold a domestic referendum on joining Russia, with the results potentially being tampered with to show majority support.
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Yesica Fisch in Bakhmut, Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Mstyslav Chernov in Kharkiv, Elena Becatoros in Odessa, Jill Lawless in London and other AP staff around the world contributed to this report.
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