Russian troops launched an armored ground attack on Ukraine’s northeast Friday, in what Kyiv said was a major new offensive it had been expecting for months.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said it was rushing reserve units to the Kharkiv border region after a Russian effort to break through its defense lines backed by armored vehicles and artillery.
The ministry said in a statement that the dawn attacks had been repulsed, but that “battles of varying intensity” continued. “The defense forces of Ukraine continue to hold back the enemy’s offensive,” it said.
“Russia has begun a new wave of counteroffensive actions in this direction,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during a planned news conference in Kyiv shortly after the ministry’s statement. “Ukraine has met them there with our troops, brigades and artillery.”
Ukraine’s command was prepared for a Russian assault in the area, he said, and was ready to meet the enemy “with fire.” The Russian army could send more forces in this direction, he said, adding that a “fierce battle” was ongoing.
Ukrainian officials have been warning that the Kremlin was massing thousands of troops for a major new offensive this summer. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made clear his desire to carve out a buffer zone pushing Ukrainian forces back from their northern border, but until now his military’s push across the front lines had been largely focused in the south and the eastern Donbas region.
It was not immediately clear whether the new Russian attack was an attempt to draw away Ukrainian forces — outgunned and outmanned despite new promises of Western support, or if it represented a major effort to seize territory around Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said Russia had carried out strikes using guided aerial bombs before attempting to breach defenses in the direction of Vovchansk, a town on the border with Russia just 35 miles northeast of Kharkiv.
Regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov also said Friday that Russian forces had intensified their shelling in the northern direction, especially around Vovchansk.
Shelling with guided aerial bombs and artillery went on throughout the night, he said, and there were unsuccessful attempts by Russian reconnaissance groups to break through the border.
“The Armed Forces of Ukraine confidently hold their positions: not a single meter has been lost,” Syniehubov said in a post on Telegram. “The enemy group does not pose a threat to Kharkiv, its forces are sufficient only for provocations in the northern direction.”
He also called for residents in the north of the region, especially those near Vovchansk, to heed evacuation calls.
Military analysts had been expecting a new Russian push in the region as Kyiv waits for new U.S. military aid to arrive after months of severe ammunition shortages.
Moscow has used this vulnerability to press on, claiming to have taken multiple villages in eastern Ukraine in recent weeks. However, increased activity in the Kharkiv region could mark a new focus for Russian troops.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Friday its forces claimed two settlements to the southeast of Kharkiv this week. It did not immediately release any statements about the alleged attempt early this morning at the breakthrough near Vovchansk.
Russia’s influential military bloggers and war reporters were cautious early Friday, suggesting the reports could be the beginning of a long and arduous effort for Russian troops with no “quick victories.”
And Western military analysts were similarly cautious.
“We need to be very careful about using words like breakthrough. As of now these seem more like probing attacks than a major offensive. Of course, its early days, so this can change,” Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, told NBC News.
The regional capital, Kharkiv, has been badly shelled for weeks, in what some military observers saw as a possible preparation for a large-scale attack.
Putin has vowed to carve out a “sanitary zone” around the broader Kharkiv region to stop Ukrainian attacks from reaching Russia’s own border regions.
Friday’s offensive actions may be an effort to launch a major ground assault or it may be an effort to draw Ukrainian forces to that area so that Russia can then attack elsewhere, said Neil Melvin, the director of international security at the Royal United Services Institute, or RUSI, a London-based think tank.
“For some months, Russia has been putting pressure on the Ukraine defenses, so that Kyiv is forced to continually move around its military forces to make sure that there is not a breakthrough,” Melvin said. “Through these actions Russia is seeking to shape the battlefield to its advantage — to try to create gaps in Ukraine’s defensive lines so that Moscow can then attack where the defenses are weakest.”
“Russia is assessed to have amassed around 50,000 troops in the area,” he said, But “the picture will only likely become clear in the days ahead.”
