KYIV, May 17 ------ Ukraine said it had pulled back troops near several villages in its northeastern Kharkiv region, where Russian forces have been advancing and pounding settlements in a new offensive along the border.
Details of the withdrawal emerged as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was on an unannounced visit to the capital Kyiv, where President Volodymyr Zelensky urged him to speed up US supplies of weapons.
Moscow launched a surprise major ground assault on Kharkiv last week as it seeks to advance across the battlefield, with Kyiv struggling for arms and manpower. "In certain spots in Lukyantsi and Vovchansk areas, due to the fire impact and assault actions of the enemy, maneuvers were carried out in order to save the lives of our soldiers, units were removed to advantageous positions," a military spokesman said on state television. Authorities in Vovchansk said there was intense street-to-street fighting in the border village that had an estimated population of 20,000 people before the war. "We are here and are evacuating people and helping them. The situation in Vovchansk is extremely difficult," police chief Oleksiy Kharkivsky said on social media. Throughout the two-year war, both sides have typically used the language of moving to more "advantageous positions" to signify retreats. The two villages about 30 kilometers (18 miles) apart — are close to the border with Russia and have been targeted in the fresh offensive. The Ukrainian military said the situation "remains difficult" but insisted that its forces were "not allowing the Russian occupiers to gain a foothold." Kyiv has rushed reinforcements to the area to prevent Russia from punching through.
'Difficult' fighting in east
The "Donetsk and Kharkiv regions are where it is most difficult now," Zelenskyy said in an address on Tuesday evening. Kyiv on Wednesday canceled some emergency power blackouts that it had introduced to deal with a drop in temperatures that strained its battered energy system. Some military analysts say Moscow may be trying to force Ukraine to divert troops from other areas of the front line, such as around the strategic town of Chasiv Yar in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia has also been advancing. State power operator Ukrenergo had announced a series of overnight and early morning power cuts to deal with "the cold weather amid the consequences of Russian shelling" that has destroyed swathes of Ukraine's generating facilities. "Emergency shutdowns in Kyiv [and the Kyiv, Odesa, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions] were lifted," said DTEK, the country's largest private energy operator.
Blinken's visit came just weeks after the US Congress finally approved a $61-billion financial aid package for Ukraine following months of political wrangling, unlocking much-needed arms for the country's outgunned troops. It began as the Russian Defense Ministry announced that its troops had captured two more villages in Kharkiv. During his meeting with Blinken, Zelenskyy asked for two more Patriot air defense systems to defend the border territory. On the second day of his visit, the top US diplomat toured a drone production center and grain export facility. Ukrainian officials have said more than 30,000 Russian forces have been deployed to the northeastern region but that the regional hub, the country's second-largest city of Kharkiv, was not threatened by the offensive. Ukraine also launched aerial attacks on Russia, forcing the closure of two airports in the region of Tatarstan some 1,000 km (620 mi) inside Russian territory. Russian aerial defense systems intercepted and destroyed 17 drones across several border areas, as well as 10 Army Tactical Missile System missiles over the annexed Crimea Peninsula, Moscow's Defense Ministry said.
Source: manilatimes.net
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