Ukraine says Russian offensive in key town blocked

Ukrainian units locked in street battles with the Kremlin’s forces in a key north-eastern Ukraine town have halted the Russian advance, military officials in Kyiv have claimed although a senior Russian official says the frontline push has enough resources to keep going.

Russian attempts to establish a foothold in the town of Vovchansk, which is among the largest towns in Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region with a pre-war population of 17,000, “have been foiled,” Ukraine’s general staff said.

It was not possible to independently verify the claim.

Six people were injured on Thursday in one Russian daylight attack on Vovchansk using cluster munitions, local officials said, as emergency workers and volunteers were rescuing people affected by shelling.

Among the injured were two medics.

Ukrainian authorities have relocated 8000 civilians from the town.

The Russian army’s usual tactic is to reduce towns and villages to ruins with aerial strikes before its units move in.

Vovchansk, located just 5km from the Russian border, has been a hotspot in the fighting in recent days.

Russia launched an offensive in the Kharkiv area late last week, significantly adding to the pressure on Ukraine’s outnumbered and outgunned forces which are waiting for delayed deliveries of weapons and ammunition from its allies.

Russia has also been testing defences at other points along the roughly 1000km front line snaking from north to south through eastern Ukraine.

The line has barely changed over the past 18 months in what became a war of attrition.

Recent Russian attacks have come in the eastern Donetsk region, as well as the Chernihiv and Sumy regions in the north and in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.

The apparent aim is to stretch depleted Ukrainian resources and exploit weaknesses.

NATO’s top military officer says he believes Russian forces are incapable of any major advance.

“The Russians don’t have the numbers necessary to do a strategic breakthrough, we don’t believe,” US General Christopher Cavoli - NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe - told reporters after a meeting of the organisation’s top military brass in Brussels.

“More to the point, they don’t have the skill and the capability to do it; to operate at the scale necessary to exploit any breakthrough to strategic advantage,” Cavoli said.

Asked whether Russia might be about to launch its anticipated northern hemisphere summer offensive early, Cavoli said “we can never be sure” but he added that “what we don’t see is large numbers of reserves being generated someplace” which would be needed for any such offensive.

Ukraine has repeatedly tried to strike behind Russian lines, often using drones although Russia’s response to the new technology used in unmanned vehicles has improved in recent months.

Russian naval aircraft on Thursday destroyed 11 Ukrainian sea drones heading towards annexed Crimea in the western Black Sea, Russia’s defence ministry said, according to state news agency TASS.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met with his top military commanders in Kharkiv on Thursday and said the region “is generally under control”.

But he acknowledged on social media that the situation is “extremely difficult” and said Ukraine was again strengthening its units in Kharkiv.

Zelenskiy also met with wounded soldiers and handed out medals.

“We clearly see how the occupier is trying to distract our forces and make our combat work less concentrated,” he said in his nightly video address on Wednesday.

Former Russian defence minister and now the head of the Presidential Security Council Sergei Shoigu insisted Russian troops are pushing the offensive in many directions and that “it’s going quite well”.

“I hope we will keep advancing. We have certain reserves for the purpose, in personnel, equipment and munitions,” he said in televised remarks.