Russian forces continued their advance in northern Ukraine’s Kharkiv on Monday, achieving a “tactical success”, Kiev said, as fears grew that Moscow would achieve its biggest breakthrough since the early days of the war.
Some of the fiercest fighting is taking place on the outskirts of the Ukrainian city of Vovchansk, which before the war had a population of 17,000. Ukrainian and Russian reports confirmed that Russian troops had advanced on the outskirts of the city, where gunfire was reported in industrial areas.
“At the moment, the enemy has tactical success” in the battle for Vovchansk, Ukraine’s General Staff admitted in a statement on social media early Monday.
Ukraine’s General Staff said there was also fighting around settlements south of the village of Pilna. “Our defenders lead defensive actions [to] deal damage to the enemy,” it said.
In an attempt to turn the tide, Kiev announced on Monday a change in the commander who controls Kharkiv’s northeastern front line. Ukraine did not give a reason for the decision.
In a later update on Monday, Ukraine’s General Staff announced it was moving additional reserves to the Kharkiv area to try to halt the Russian advance.
Deepstate, a Ukrainian open-source analytics group, earlier said Russia captured three more villages in the Kharkiv region on Sunday.
On Monday, Russian troops were advancing near Liptsi, another small town that is even closer to Kharkiv than Vovchansk.
Kharkiv Governor Oleg Sinegubov told local television: “The enemy is trying to deliberately stretch it [the frontline]attacking in small groups but in new directions so to speak.
He said Ukrainian forces were holding back Russian troops, but there was a real threat of fighting spreading to new settlements.
Both sides have so far assumed that Russia has yet to make a major breakthrough that would allow Moscow to advance on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. The villages captured by Moscow since Friday are located in what Ukrainian authorities call a “grey zone” between the Russian border and Ukraine’s main defense line.
Influential Russian military blogger Rybar wrote on Monday that “no large-scale breakthroughs of the enemy’s defenses have been recorded.”
Yuriy Butusov, a prominent Ukrainian journalist reporting from the front line, said Russian progress had slowed as their troops suffered mass casualties. Butusov said that the Ukrainian position is improving after the appointment of the new commander.
Russia was gradually intensifies military operations around Kharkiv over the past month, taking advantage of Ukraine’s limited air defenses to bomb the city and its surroundings in an attempt to persuade more than its 1.3 million residents to flee.
At dawn last Friday, Moscow launched a new undeclared offensive, quickly capturing nearly a dozen villages and towns, marking the end of a prolonged stalemate in the Kharkiv region.
The Russian advance led to rare public criticism among the Ukrainian military, signaling cracks in troop morale.
“The first line of fortifications and mines simply did not exist,” Denis Yaroslavsky, commander of a unit fighting in the area, wrote on Facebook in an emotional post condemning Ukraine’s retreat.
“The enemy has freely entered the gray zone, across the border line, which should not be gray in principle… We conclude that this is either a wanton theft or a deliberate sabotage,” he said. “I say this because we can die and no one will hear the truth. Then why is it all?”
The public outcry prompted a reaction from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. Alexander Yakovets, a senior military official, dismissed criticism of the alleged lack of Ukrainian fortifications as “absurd misinformation” that “devalues the efforts of army engineers”.
Yakovets told Ukrainian television that the “best-equipped fortifications” in the country were located further from the front lines, along a prepared defense line.
Ukraine is experiencing chronic shortages of manpower and weapons after a slowdown in Western funding. As the war approaches its 28th month, Ukrainian troops are exhausted, prompting lawmakers last week to approve a controversial bill allowing Kiev to mobilize convicts, a tactic previously used by Russia.
Military experts generally agree that the number of Russian forces deployed in the offensive against Kharkiv was not sufficient to capture the city of Kharkiv. Instead, the attacks could force Ukraine to move reserves into the region, away from defensive positions elsewhere on the front line.
Russian forces are also trying to capture the strategically key eastern city of Chasov Yar. Taking it would allow Moscow to hit the key remaining Ukrainian-held cities in the Donetsk region: Kramatorsk, Slavyansk, Druzhkovka and Konstantinovka.
Moscow may also be trying to minimize Ukraine’s capacity to strike Belgorod Oblast, which lies just across the border. The city of Belgorod, the region’s capital, is just over half an hour’s drive from the border with Ukraine, making it a vital stop for Russian supplies. The city has been subject to intense shelling and drone attacks for months
On Sunday, Russian authorities said at least 13 people were killed and 20 injured when part of an apartment building collapsed in Belgorod. Russian authorities blamed Ukrainian shelling for the destruction of the building.
Some independent analysts questioned Russia’s accusations that Ukraine was behind the shelling of the apartment. Ruslan Leviev, the founder of the Conflict Intelligence Team, an open-source investigative arm, said the incident was likely caused by an errant missile fired by Russia.
Moscow’s offensive in Kharkiv comes as Vladimir Putin removed his longtime ally Sergei Shoigu as defense minister in the most significant reshuffle of the military command since the invasion. In a surprise appointment, the Kremlin announced on Sunday evening that Shoigu would be replaced by Andrey Belousov, a former deputy prime minister who is an economics specialist.
The move underlined the Kremlin’s aim to further strengthen its military economy, allowing Moscow to continue fighting a long war.
