Ukraine’s top commander warned on Friday of “heavy battles” looming on the war’s new front in the northeastern Kharkiv region as Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was carving out a “buffer zone” in the area.
Russian forces attacked the Kharkiv region’s north last on Friday, making inroads of up to 10m and unbalancing Kyiv’s outnumbered troops who are trying to hold the line over a sprawling front nearly 27 months since the invasion.
Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi said the attack had expanded the combat zone by around 70km and that Russia had launched its incursion ahead of schedule after “it noticed the deployment of our forces”.
“We understand there will be heavy battles and that the enemy is preparing for that,” the head of the Ukrainian armed forces wrote in a statement on the Telegram app.
Russian forces have the initiative on the battlefield and are slowly advancing in the east, exploiting Ukrainian shortages of manpower.
Speaking during a state visit to China, Putin said Russia was creating a “buffer zone” in Ukraine’s northeast to protect its own border regions, but said capturing the city of Kharkivwas not part of the current plan.
Faced with Russian airstrikes throughout the war, Kyiv has scrambled to develop drones and missiles and staged strikes on facilities in Russia it says are being used to support the war and bomb Ukrainian towns, cities and power facilities.
Kharkiv’s mayor said a Russian missile strike on Friday had killed two people and injured 25 more in the city.
Putin told a news conference in China that the assault on Kharkiv region was a response to Kyiv’s shelling of Russian border regions such as Belgorod where he said civilians were dying.
“They are shooting directly at the city centre, at residential areas. And I said publicly that if this continues, we will be forced to create a security zone, a buffer zone. That is what we are doing,” he said. Russian forces were able to advance 10km in one place in Kharkiv, although the Ukrainians have “stabilised” the front.
