Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the northeastern city of Kharkiv to boost morale and reinforce troops in the region where Russian forces are trying to press their new offensive beyond border areas.
Russia has made inroads of at least several kilometres into the north of Kharkiv region since Friday, forcing Ukraine's outmanned troops to try to hold the line on a new front as Russia mounts more pressure on the front in the east.
"The direction remains extremely difficult - we are strengthening our units," Mr Zelensky said after holding a meeting in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, with his top commander and senior military leaders.
"The situation in the Kharkiv region is generally under control, and our soldiers are inflicting significant losses on the occupier," he said.
In Kharkiv, I went to see our defenders who had been wounded in the Kharkiv region battles. I spoke with them and presented them with state awards.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) May 16, 2024
I am grateful to our warriors for their service and bravery. Ukraine is proud of them all.
I also want to thank our medical… pic.twitter.com/9xUFxHxe4B
Later, in his nightly video address, Mr Zelensky said that thanks to the actions of Ukrainian forces "we have achieved more certainty" near Vovchansk, 5km inside the border.
"But the Russian shelling is not stopping, threats persist." he said.
Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Syniehubov, speaking on national television, said Russian forces were still focused on capturing the town.
"While we cannot say that our soldiers have yet stabilised the frontline, they have already stopped the active advance of the enemy in Kharkiv region," he said.
In some places, he added, Ukrainian troops had regained earlier positions.
Mr Zelensky, who has cancelled his upcoming foreign trips as the battlefield situation deteriorates, met wounded soldiers recovering at a medical facility and posed for photographs with troops at another location.
Troops stretched over long frontline
Apart from inflicting devastation on frontline settlements and dealing a blow to Kyiv's morale, Russia's Kharkiv push is a headache for Ukrainian war planners whose troops are already stretched over a more than 1,000km line.
Ukraine's military said yesterday that its forces fighting near the town of Kupiansk - some 85km southeast of Kharkiv - were pulling back to more "advantageous positions".
In a statement, the General Staff said Russia was directing its most intense assaults on the front near the cities of Pokrovsk and Kramatorsk in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia's offensive has been unrelenting for months.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that Moscow's forces were improving their positions "every day" along the front in Ukraine and that the advance was going to plan.
After reporting fighting in Vovchansk, some 45km from the city of Kharkiv, the Ukrainian General Staff said its troops had launched a counterattack to hit back at the invaders.
Ukraine, whose shortages of manpower have been compounded by delays to Western arms supplies, has warned that Russia may be preparing for a big offensive in the coming weeks.
It has flagged a Russian buildup of small units near its Sumy region.
Pasi Paroinen, an analyst with the Black Bird Group, told Reuters that Russia's Kharkiv push aimed at drawing Ukraine's limited reserves into battle before an offensive begins.
"If Ukraine overcommits in Kharkiv and Sumy, they may preserve some territory there, perhaps prevent Kharkiv civilians from suffering artillery bombardments, perhaps even push back the enemy back to the border," he said.
"But it may cost them the war, if the reserves are not available to respond to crises during the Russian summer offensive."
Meanwhile, Russia's ability to make further breakthroughs may be limited by a lack of sufficient forces, a top NATO commander said.
"The Russians don't have the numbers necessary to do a strategic breakthrough... more to the point they don't have the skill and the ability to do it," US General Christopher Cavoli, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told journalists in Brussels.
"I've been in very close contact with our Ukrainian colleagues and I'm confident they will hold the line," Gen Cavoli said after Ukraine's military briefed NATO's top brass.
Kharkiv, 30km from the border, has been pounded for months by airstrikes that defenders struggle to stop with depleted air defences.
Russian forces have pressed two thrusts into the region, one towards Vovchansk and the other towards the village of Lyptsi, 17km from the northern outskirts of Kharkiv.
Ukraine has scrambled to evacuate civilians from the town and other border areas - about 9,000 people have left so far.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko accused Russian forces of killing a resident in Vovchansk who tried to escape on foot and refused to obey their orders.
Serhii Bolvinov, head of the investigative department of the regional police, said in televised comments that Russian troops had taken up to 40 civilians captive.
Local prosecutors reported four dead and 12 injured in the area.
Reuters was unable to immediately verify Klymenko's or Bolvinov's accounts.
Russia said it has taken control of 12 villages since it launched its attack.
Russia's defence ministry claimed its forces had advanced into Ukraine's defences and inflicted personnel and equipment losses near Vovchansk and Lyptsi.
Ukrainian shelling kills four in Donetsk, Moscow claims
Ukrainian shelling killed four women in the Russian-held city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, the region's Kremlin-installed authorities said.
Donetsk has been occupied by Russia and its proxy forces since 2014 and lies less than 10km from intense fighting on the eastern front.
"Four women born in 1986, 1980, 1961 and 1952 were killed on Petrovsky Street near public transport stop School No. 106," the authorities said in a Telegram post.
The attack wounded two others, a girl born in 2018 and a man born in 1987, while separate shelling of a nearby town injured an elderly man in his 70s, they said.
The head of the region's Russian-backed administration, Denis Pushilin, called the shelling "barbaric" in a post on social media and blamed the Ukrainian army.
Ukraine did not immediately comment but denies targeting civilians in Donetsk and other Russian-held areas in the east and south of the country.
