KYIV, 25 May: Ukrainian forces have secured \u201ccombat control\u201d of areas where Russian troops entered the northeastern Kharkiv region earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
\n\u201cOur soldiers have now managed to take combat control of the border area where the Russian occupiers entered,\u201d Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address on Friday evening.
\nZelenskyy\u2019s comments appeared to be at odds with those made by Russian officials.
\nViktor Vodolatskiy, a member of Russia\u2018s lower house of parliament, said Russian forces now controlled more than half of the town of Vovchansk, three miles (five kilometers) inside the border, Russian state news agency Tass reported Friday.
\nVovchansk has been a flashpoint for fighting since Russia launched an offensive in the Kharkiv region on May 10.
\nVodolatskiy was also quoted as saying that, once Vovchansk was secured, Russian forces would target the cities of Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Pokrovsk in the neighboring Donetsk region.
\nNo independent confirmation of the claims was immediately possible.
\nRussia\u2019s Kharkiv push appears to be a coordinated new offensive that includes testing Ukrainian defenses in the Donetsk region further south \u2014 where Russia\u2019s Defense Ministry said Saturday that its forces had taken over the village of Arkhanhelske \u2014 while also launching incursions in the northern Sumy and Chernihiv regions. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the Kremlin\u2019s army is attempting to create a \u201cbuffer zone\u201d in the Kharkiv region to prevent Ukrainian cross-border attacks.
\nThe city of Kharkiv, which is the capital of the region of the same name, is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Russian border. Moscow\u2019s troops have in recent weeks captured villages in the area as part of a broad push, and analysts say they may be trying to get within artillery range of the city. Ukrainian authorities have evacuated more than 11,000 people from the region since the start of the offensive.
\nThe Russian push is shaping up to be Ukraine\u2019s biggest test since Moscow\u2019s full-scale invasion in February 2022, with outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces being pressed at several points along the about 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line that snakes from north to south in eastern Ukraine.
\nUkraine\u2019s problems have been mounting in recent months as it tries to hold out against its much bigger foe, and the war appears to be at a critical juncture. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KYIV, 25 May: Ukrainian forces have secured \u201ccombat control\u201d of areas where Russian troops entered the northeastern Kharkiv region earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. \u201cOur soldiers have now managed to take combat control of the border area where the Russian occupiers entered,\u201d Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address on Friday evening. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-241020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}