Kiev, Ukraine (AP) – Russian troops are leaving Ukraine’s second -largest city after bombing it for weeks, the Ukrainian military said Saturday, when forces from Kiev and Moscow were involved. Crushing battle For the eastern industrial center of the country.
The Ukrainian general staff said the Russians were leaving the northeastern city of Kharkov and were committed to securing supply routes, while in the eastern Donetsk province, with mortars, artillery and air strikes, “they are destroying the Ukrainian forces and the strongholds”. .
Defense Minister Olex Reznikov said Ukraine was “entering a new long -term phase of war”.
It was announced by President Vladimir Zelensky that the Ukrainians were doing their “best” to oust the occupiers and that the outcome of the war depended on Europe and support. Other allies.
“Now no one can predict how long this war will last,” Zelensky said in a speech that evening.
As a sign of support, a U.S. Senate delegation led by Republican Party leader Mitch McConnell met with the President of Ukraine in Kiev on Saturday. A video posted to Zelensky’s Telegram account shows McConnell, representing Kentucky, and Republican Senators from Maine Susan Collins, John Barasso of Wyoming, and John Cornyn of Texas.
Their trip comes after another Kentucky senator, Rand Paul, was blocked until next week the Senate approved another $ 40 billion to help Ukraine and its allies fight a three-month aggression in Russia.
After Russian forces failed to occupy Kiev after the invasion on February 24, President Vladimir Putin shifted his focus east to the Donbas, an industrial region where Ukrainian troops are fighting Moscow-backed separatists. since 2014.
Russia’s offensive aims to encircle the more experienced and well -equipped Ukrainian troops based in the east and seize parts of the Donbas that remain under Ukrainian control.
Air strikes and artillery fire were extremely dangerous for reporters moving east, preventing attempts to get a complete picture of the direction of the battle. But the fight appears to be a recurring slogan with no significant twist on either side.
Russia occupied several villages and towns in the Donbas, including Rubizhne, a city with a pre-war population of approximately 55,000.
Zelensky said Ukrainian forces also advanced in the east, capturing six Ukrainian towns or villages on the last day.
Kharkiv, not far from the Russian border and only 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of Russia’s city of Belgorod, has suffered a week of intense bombing. A predominantly Russian -speaking city with a pre -war population of 1.4 million was Russia’s main military target at the start of the war, when Moscow was hoping to seize major cities in Ukraine.
“Ukraine seems to have won the battle for Kharkov,” said the Washington -based think tank, the Institute for War Studies. “Ukrainian forces prevented the siege of Russian troops, not to mention the capture of Kharkov, and then guided them around the city, as they did with Russian forces trying to seize Kiev.”
The governor of the region, Oleh Sinegubov, said in a post published on the Telegram messaging app that there were no bombings in Kharkov yesterday.
He added that Ukraine had launched a counterattack near Izumi, 125 kilometers (78 miles) south of the city of Kharkiv, which was held by Russia even in early April.
Fighting was intense on the Donetsk River near the city of Severodonetsk, where Ukraine launched counterattacks but failed to stop Russia’s advance, said Olekh Zhdanov, an independent Ukrainian military analyst.
“The fate of a large part of the Ukrainian army is being decided – about 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers,” he said.
However, Russian forces suffered heavy losses in the attack on Ukraine, which destroyed the pontoon bridge, which they used to cross the same river – the largest in eastern Ukraine – in the city of Bilohorivka, officials said. Ukrainian and British. This is another sign that Moscow is struggling to survive the war.
The UK Defense Ministry said Russia had lost “significant armor maneuvering elements” from at least one battalion tactical group during the attack. The tactical group of the Russian battalion consists of about 1000 soldiers.
The ministry said the dangerous river crossing was “a sign of pressure from Russian commanders to make progress on operations in eastern Ukraine”.
Zelensky said in his nightly video speech that Ukrainians are doing everything they can to oust the Russians and push the West to increase support.
“Unfortunately, it’s not just up to our people, who are already giving what they can,” he said. It depends on our partners, in European countries, around the free world.
The Ukrainian leader warned that the war was causing a global food crisis as Russia’s blockade prevented Ukrainian wheat from leaving the port.
The Seven Leading Economic Groups He reiterated his warning, saying on Saturday that “Russia’s aggressive war has created one of the worst food and energy crises in recent history and now threatens the world’s most vulnerable.”
Putin started a war with Ukraine to prevent NATO from expanding into Eastern Europe. But the invasion of Ukraine worries other countries on the Russian side that may follow.
This week, the Finnish president and prime minister announced that they support their country’s membership in NATO. Swedish officials are expected to announce on Sunday a decision on whether to apply to join the Western military alliance.
The Kremlin said the two leaders had a “sincere exchange of views” in a telephone conversation on Saturday.
According to Niinisto, the discussion was “direct and unambiguous and took place without exaggeration. Avoiding stress is considered important. “
Russia’s response to Finland and Sweden has so far been muted, but Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said on Saturday that their membership in NATO would increase security tensions in the Arctic and “turn it into an arena. of military competition “.
Potential offers from Scandinavian countries They were asked on Friday, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country had “no favorable opinion” on the idea.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken plans to meet with NATO counterparts in Germany this weekend, along with the Turkish foreign minister.
– Ukrainian fighters trapped in an iron mill in the ruined southern port of Mariupol are facing continued Russian attacks on the city’s last stronghold of resistance. The Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister said that the Ukrainian authorities are in talks with the evacuation of 60 seriously injured soldiers from the steel plant. Irina Vereshchuk said Russia had not consented to the evacuation of all wounded fighters from the factory, which numbered in the hundreds.
– Anna Kuznetsova, vice president of the Russian parliament, visited Kherson, a region on the border of the Black Sea, which has been occupied by Russia since the early days of the war. Russia ousted the Promoskov regional administration and the British Defense Ministry said Russia could hold a local referendum on joining Russia, the results of which are likely to manipulate the support of the majority away from Ukraine.
Jessica Fish in Bakhmut, Yura Karmanau in Lviv, Mstislav Chernov in Kharkov, Elena Bekatoros in Odessa, Jill Lowles in London and other AP staff around the world contributed to this report.
Source: Huffpost
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.