Russia attempts ground offensive into Ukraine’s Kharkiv
Al Jazeera
Ukrainian forces fighting to halt new Russian assault aimed at creating Putin’s planned ‘buffer zone’.
Russian forces attempted an armoured ground invasion of Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region with artillery and guided aerial bombs, Ukrainian officials have said.
On Friday, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence said that Russian forces tried to breach Ukrainian defences near the town of Vovchansk with “armoured vehicles” at 5am (02:00 GMT), hitting an area near the border with aerial attacks. The assault had been repulsed, but “battles of varying intensity” continued, it said.
A senior Ukrainian military source told the Reuters news agency that Russian forces had pushed one kilometre (0.6 miles) into the region. They aimed, he said, to advance as far as 10km (six miles) to establish the buffer zone that Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to create earlier this year as a means of halting Ukrainian attacks on Russian border regions.
Ukraine had previously said it was aware that Russia was assembling thousands of troops along the northeastern border. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his forces were prepared for the ground assault.
“Ukraine met them there with troops: brigades and artillery,” he told a news conference.
