Zelenskyy says Ukraine has regained control over areas of embattled Kharkiv region

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces have secured “combat control” of areas where Russian troops entered the northeast region of Kharkiv earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

“Our soldiers have now managed to take combat control of the border area where the Russian occupiers entered,” Zelenskyy said in his evening video address on Friday night.

Zelenskyy’s comments appeared to be at odds with those made by Russian officials.

Viktor Vodolatskiy, a member of the lower house of the Russian parliament, said Russian forces now control more than half of the city of Vovchansk, five kilometers inside the border, Russian state news agency Tass reported on Friday.

Vovchansk has been a hotbed of fighting since Russia launched an offensive in the Kharkiv region on May 10.

Vodolatskiy was also quoted as saying that once Vovchansk was secured, Russian forces would target the cities of Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Pokrovsk in the neighboring Donetsk region.

No independent confirmation of the claims was immediately possible.

The Russian push into Kharkiv appears to be a new coordinated offensive that includes testing Ukrainian defenses in the southern Donetsk region – where the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday that its forces had taken control of the village of Arkhanhelske – at the same time. while launching incursions into the northern regions of Sumy and Chernihiv. . Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Kremlin army is trying to create a “buffer zone” in the Kharkiv region to prevent cross-border Ukrainian attacks.

The city of Kharkiv, capital of the region of the same name, is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Russian border. Moscow’s troops have in recent weeks captured villages in the area as part of a broad offensive, and analysts say they may be trying to get within artillery range of the city. Ukrainian authorities have evacuated more than 11,000 people from the region since the start of the offensive.

Russian pressure appears to be Ukraine’s biggest test since the full-scale invasion of Moscow in February 2022, with outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces coming under pressure at several points along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-kilometer) front line. miles) that winds from north to north. to the south, in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine’s problems have been mounting in recent months as the country tries to resist its much larger enemy, and the war appears to be at a critical juncture.

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Morton reported from London.

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