In the past three days, Russian forces have invaded across the border in northeastern Ukraine with the support of fighter jets, artillery and deadly drones, capturing at least nine villages and settlements, an area the war more than at almost any other point in time. Save the first part.
Ukrainian troops have been withdrawn in some areas, and Ukrainian military commanders are blaming each other for the defeat.
Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been evacuated to the nearest large city, Kharkiv. The reception center, which had an air of order and calm on Saturday, was a very different scene on Sunday, with exhausted people screaming at each other and families with nowhere to go spilling out onto the lawn.
As unrest spreads, especially in Kharkiv, some difficult questions are emerging about how long this will last. Is it just a temporary setback for vulnerable Ukrainians? Or is it a turning point?
Military experts say Russia's advance puts Ukraine in an extremely dangerous situation. Ukraine's military has been complaining for months of severe ammunition shortages, made worse by disruptions in the U.S. Congress that delayed deliveries of key weapons. And no matter how you look at it, Ukrainian soldiers are exhausted.
With Ukraine exhausted and short of new troops after more than two years of fighting against a country three times its population, parliamentarians voted to mobilize the convicts. This was a controversial move, with Ukraine ridiculing it as being used by Russia in military operations. The first half of the war.
A Ukrainian commander took the unusual step on Sunday of accusing his colleagues of poor border defense.
“First-line fortifications and mines were completely absent,” reconnaissance commander Denis Yaroslavsky wrote on Facebook. “The enemy has crossed a border that in principle should not be gray and freely invaded gray territory!”
(The “gray” areas are areas of conflict between the Russian and Ukrainian fronts.)
Other Ukrainian officials denied that the country's military was unprepared and said reports suggesting otherwise were complete disinformation benefiting Russia.
Yaroslavsky added that urban fighting had broken out in the small town of Vovtyansk near Kharkov, which was now under siege. “I say this because we may die and no one will hear the truth,” he wrote. “Then why all that?!”
Kharkiv city itself is safe at the moment. It is located approximately 32 kilometers from the border. But just outside the city, people are running for their lives. Russian forces are closing in on Lipsy, another small town even closer to Kharkov than Vovchansk. Residents who were evacuated in evacuation vans on Sunday said the situation in Lipsi did not look good.
“For the past three days they have been shelling us every 10 minutes,” said Halina Surina, who fled on Sunday afternoon. “There were artillery, plane bombs and drones flying around. We could hear a helicopter, but it wasn't our helicopter.”
Her voice was trembling and she could barely get the words out.
Capturing Lipsi would put Russian forces within range of Kharkov's artillery. Kharkiv is a metropolis of more than 1 million people that is truly struggling to rebuild. For Ukrainians, all of this is a bad case of déjà vu.
Russian forces created a similar situation in early 2022, raiding across the northern border, seizing villages and small towns, and reaching the ring road surrounding Kharkiv. The city's population endured months of shelling and missile attacks, leaving hundreds dead. Empty high-rise apartment buildings on the east side of town stand as charred monuments to those terrible days.
Military analysts say part of Russia's plan with the all-out offensive is to intimidate Kharkiv and force Ukraine to divert troops from other theaters, particularly in the eastern Donbas region.
And that's exactly what is happening. On Sunday afternoon, a group of Ukrainian special forces members gathered at a gas station, drinking energy drinks and trying to take stock of the situation. they looked tired. And they said that they had just been relocated from Donbass.
“Like many analysts, the Russians understand that the main disadvantage Ukraine currently suffers from is human resources,” said Vienna-based military analyst Franz Stefan Gadi. “There is,” he said. “By thinning the front line, we increase the possibility of a breakthrough.”
There may be an even bigger, more strategic motive. Russian President Vladimir V. Putin has just won an election he billed as a referendum on whether to go to war. If his forces once again threaten Kharkov, once again sending miles of cars filled with terrified civilians onto the highways, once again turning Ukraine's second city into a shell, the Ukrainian people and their allies will have no choice but to do so. There is a possibility that morale will fall again.
It hasn't happened yet, but if it does, it could give the impression that little has changed, two years later, hundreds of thousands of casualties and billions of dollars later. This would likely increase pressure on Ukrainian leaders to negotiate a ceasefire with Russia, but so far they have argued that this would only strengthen Mr. Putin's desire to invade. .
Russia on Sunday accused Ukraine of shelling the medium-sized Russian city of Belgorod, just across the Ukrainian border, killing 11 people, as fighting rages in the region and cross-border fires intensify. , the regional governor said on Telegram.
In particular, the explosion caused part of the apartment building to collapse and left a large hole in the structure of the building. The Russians blamed the Ukrainians. Ukraine denied that and provided a video showing an explosion inside the building rather than an airstrike.
Russia cites past attacks on its cities to justify the occupation of more Ukrainian territory. Russian leaders hope to drive Ukrainians back from the border and create a buffer zone, and began the mission early Friday.
Russian infantry crossed the border with support from tanks, artillery and aircraft and had captured several towns by Saturday. By Sunday more rain had fallen.
Speaking by phone on Sunday, another Ukrainian soldier working near Kharkiv said he and his comrades had not slept in days and were shocked by how quickly Russian troops were moving. .
Ukraine's top military commander, General Oleksandr Shirsky, acknowledged that the situation had “significantly deteriorated” but said Russian attempts to penetrate Ukraine's defense lines had so far failed.
Some analysts believe that no matter how bad the situation seems for Ukraine at the moment, the overall direction of the war will not change.
Thibaut Fouillet, deputy director of the French research center Institute for Strategic Defense Studies, said this would have “little impact on the war overall” and that for now the fighting had been reduced to a “general tactical stalemate”. He said that Russia's military power is declining. Limited, expensive benefits.
Civilians in Russia's path are not willing to take any risks. Ukrainian authorities reported Sunday that 4,500 people had been evacuated from the northern border town of Kharkiv. Many more people jumped in their cars and got out.
“I could hear machine gun fire coming closer and closer,” said Zhenia Baskivskaya, who had just arrived in Kharkov from Vovtyansk.
She said the Russians were “just about to break in.”
Oleksandra Mykolyshin Contributed to the report from Kharkov.
