Thousands of civilians flee from Russian offensive in northeast Ukraine – Dagsavisen

This is what Ukrainian sources say on Sunday.

The intense fighting has forced at least one Ukrainian branch to retreat in the Kharkiv region, writes the AP news agency. The Russian forces have thus secured a foothold in several small towns and cities in a gray zone along the border where neither party has previously had full control.

On Sunday afternoon there were battles for the town of Vovtshansk, which before the war had 17,000 inhabitants. According to the head of Kharkiv regional police, Volodymyr Tymoshko, the Russian forces had advanced to the outskirts of the city and were approaching from three directions.

A Russian tank had been seen along one of the main roads into the city, Tymoshko said.

Heavy shelling

– The city of Vovtshansk is under constant attack. Everything in the city is being destroyed, said a police officer working with evacuations in a nearby village.

Journalists from the AP news agency stayed in a nearby village on Sunday. They saw smoke rising from the city as the Russians fired shells at it. Ukrainian evacuation teams worked throughout the day to extract residents, most of them elderly, from the area where the fighting raged.

– A total of 4,073 people have evacuated, wrote Governor Oleh Synjehubov of Kharkiv County on social media. According to him, Russian forces had attacked 27 towns and small towns in the past 24 hours.

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Ammunition shortage

Analysts say the Russian offensive aims to exploit Ukrainian ammunition shortages before promised Western supplies reach the front lines. Ukrainian soldiers say Russia is using its familiar tactics of heavy shelling and infantry attacks to wear down Ukrainian forces and reduce their firepower.

By escalating fighting in what was previously a stagnant part of the front line, Russia hopes to tie up Ukrainian forces in the northeast, while at the same time stepping up attacks further south, where Russian forces are also making progress.

The offensives take place after Russia stepped up its attacks against infrastructure and residential areas in March, which analysts believe is part of a concerted effort to prepare the offensive.

The Ukrainian military is doing what it can to hold the front line, says Ukraine’s defense chief Oleksandr Syrskyj in a statement on Sunday.

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Top priority

On Sunday, a ten-storey block of flats also collapsed in the Russian city of Belgorod, close to the border. Five people are said to have been killed and around 20 injured, according to the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations. Russian authorities claim a Ukrainian attack was the cause of the collapse of the building. So far, Ukraine has not commented on the matter.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that stopping the Russian offensive in the northeast is a priority task, and that Ukrainian forces are also carrying out counterattacks in seven villages in the Kharkiv region.

– Preventing the Russian offensive is our top priority now. Whether we succeed in this task depends on each individual soldier, each sergeant, each officer, Zelenskyj said.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed on Sunday that its forces had taken control of four villages along the border with Ukraine’s Kharkiv, in addition to five villages it claimed to have taken on Saturday. The areas were not fortified with defensive works, since the area has been under continuous shelling and not secured by either party in the past.

On Sunday, the Ukrainian authorities did not officially comment on the Russian statement about advances.

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