Ukraine says Russian attackers ‘blocked’ in Kharkiv region as evacuations continue

Kyiv and Washington played down the significance of a new Russian attack on the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine even as civilians continued to evacuate from border areas and officials said the situation in the town of Vovchansk was “critical”.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken visited Kyiv on Tuesday, and said long-awaited deliveries of weapons to Ukraine had restarted and would help the country’s forces halt intensified Russian attacks on its Kharkiv and Donetsk regions.

“It is definitely not true to say they are having significant success. At the same time we must remember that the situation is quite tense and changing very quickly,” Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said on Tuesday of Russia’s incursion into the north of Kharkiv region.

“As of yesterday evening I think there is a rapid tendency towards stabilisation of the situation. Meaning that the enemy has already been blocked at the lines it was able to reach. And the operation of the Ukrainian defence forces to further stabilise and begin to push the enemy out of our country is under way,” he added.

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In Washington US state department spokesman Vedant Patel said Russia might “make further advances in the coming weeks. But we do not anticipate any major breakthroughs, and over time the additional influx of US assistance and continued support from partners will enable Ukraine...to withstand this kind of aggression.”

After weeks of heavy missile and artillery fire on Kharkiv city and the region, Russian troops seized several sparsely populated Ukrainian villages near the frontier in recent days and reached the outskirts of the border town of Vovchansk.

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Kharkiv officials said more than 7,500 people in the area had been moved to safety over the last week, and that gun battles were under way on the northern edge of Vovchansk, which has been heavily damaged by intense Russian shelling.

“The situation in the town is critical. The Russians are constantly shelling Vovchansk. The town is almost completely destroyed. The Ukrainian armed forces are protecting the settlement,” said Tamaz Gambarashvili, the head of the local administration.

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Analysts say the attack on Kharkiv region appears to be aimed at creating a “buffer zone” to halt Ukrainian strikes on and incursions into the neighbouring Russian province of Belgorod, and to draw Kyiv’s troops away from positions in neighbouring Donetsk region. Kharkiv city, which is now home to about 1.3 million people, endures near-daily missile and drone strikes but is not under threat of ground attack.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy told Mr Blinken that Kharkiv and the region needed two advanced US-made Patriot air defence systems to thwart relentless Russian bombardment of troops and civilian infrastructure, particularly the power grid.

“We appreciate the United States’ decision to continue its support for Ukraine, and we discussed how to best implement the announced aid packages and get weapons into the hands of our warriors as soon as possible,” he added.

Mr Blinken said that “assistance is now on the way, some of it has already arrived ... And that’s going to make a real difference against the ongoing Russian aggression.”

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