Ukrainian Forces Retake Russian-Held Territory Near Kharkiv

Ukrainian forces have retaken portions of Russian-held territory in the northeastern Kharkiv region as a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south has drained some of Moscow’s resources in the area, according to a new report.Ukrainian forces in the Kharkiv region are “likely exploiting Russian force reallocation” to areas near the occupied city of Kherson in the south “to conduct an opportunistic yet highly effective counteroffensive” in the province, a Washington-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, said.Ukrainian forces likely used “tactical surprise” to advance at least 12 miles into Russian-held territory in the Kharkiv region on Wednesday, recapturing approximately 155 square miles of ground, the report said.The Moscow-backed mayor of the town of Kupyansk in a Russian-occupied area of the Kharkiv region, Vitaly Ganchev, said Thursday that authorities had begun evacuating women and children from the town and nearby areas because of relentless Ukrainian shelling.In his nightly video address on Wednesday, President Zelensky also reported success in the Kharkiv region but didn’t provide details on its scope.“This week we have good news from the Kharkiv region. You have probably already seen reports about the activity of Ukrainian defenders, and I think every citizen feels proud of our warriors,” Mr. Zelensky said.The gains came as Ukraine mounted a counteroffensive in the southern Kherson region, where the Ukrainian military is trying to retake territory from the Russians and has claimed the recapture of an unspecified number of towns.Ukraine’s ongoing operations near Kherson have forced Russian forces to shift their focus to the south, the Institute for the Study of War report said, enabling Ukrainian forces to launch localized but highly effective counterattacks near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.A Ukrainian presidential adviser, Oleksiy Arestovych, also spoke of Ukrainian gains near Kharkiv late Wednesday, saying they would help disrupt supplies to Russian forces in the area and potentially lead to their encirclement.Meanwhile, tensions are simmering around Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, where Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of threatening a nuclear disaster by shelling near the facility.The towns of Nikopol and Marhanets, which face the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant across the Dnieper river, had come under Russian shelling overnight that left apartment buildings, a school, some industrial facilities, and power lines damaged, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk province, Valentyn Reznichenko, said.“The nuclear threat isn’t abating because of Russia’s mad actions and we need to consider all possible scenarios, including the worst one,” Mr. Reznichenko said in televised remarks.The head of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, has warned that “something very, very catastrophic could take place” at the Zaporizhzhia plant and urged Russia and Ukraine to establish a “nuclear safety and security protection zone” around it.The fear is that the fighting could trigger a disaster on the scale of the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986.The Ukrainian deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, urged residents of Russian-occupied areas near the power plant to evacuate, adding that Ukrainian authorities have urged the Russians to set up humanitarian corridors to evacuate local residents but received no response.“The Russians are continuing to blackmail the Ukrainians and the entire world,” Ms. Vereshchuk said. “The Russian state engages in nuclear terrorism, setting the first such precedent in the history of mankind.”In another development, the chief of the Ukrainian military, General Valerii Zaluzhny, acknowledged in an article published Wednesday that explosions and fires at air bases in the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula last month were caused by a “successful series of rocket strikes.” It marked the first official acknowledgement of responsibility for the attacks by Ukrainian authorities. The general gave no details of the attacks, but one of Ukraine’s strategies is to bring the reality of the war closer to home for everyday Russians such as those residing in Russian-occupied Crimea. Similar attacks on Russian targets in the strategic peninsula seem likely. Mr. Zelensky has on more than one occasion spoken words to the effect that the Russian war on Ukraine started with the occupation of Crimea and will end with the liberation of Crimea.

Ukrainian Forces Retake Russian-Held Territory Near Kharkiv

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