Russian forces massing for fresh northern invasion, Ukraine spy chief warns
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Russian forces are massing for another cross-border assault northwest of Kharkiv as Ukrainian soldiers struggle to fight off an attack that threatens the city, Ukraine’s spy chief has warned.
General Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, told the New York Times that Ukraine was running out of reserves and that the battlefield situation was “on edge”.
“Every hour the situation moves towards critical,” he said. “I’ve used everything we have. Unfortunately, we don’t have anyone else in the reserves.”
Russian forces launched a dawn cross-border attack 20 miles north of Kharkiv on Friday and the Kremlin has now said that its military has captured a tenth village near the town of Vovchansk.
Despite his initial downbeat assessment to the New York Times, Gen Budanov later told Ukrainian media that the situation in the Kharkiv region was “stable” and that Russian forces were holding off from attacking Sumy, a border town 90 miles northwest of Kharkiv.
“To say that they have achieved significant success is definitely not true. At the same time, we must remember that the situation is quite tense and is changing very quickly,” he said.
Gen Budanov was speaking as Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, travelled to Kyiv for a meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, a trip designed to boost Ukrainian morale.
Mr Blinken promised that delayed US weapon resupplies would reach Ukraine’s beleaguered front-line forces soon.
“We know this is a challenging time. But we also know that in the near term, the assistance is now on the way, some of it has already arrived and more of it will be arriving,” he said.
Delays in sending US weapons to Ukraine have handed Russia a large ammunition and weapons advantage which has allowed it to attack Ukrainian forces across the front line.
Russian military bloggers uploaded videos allegedly showing Russian artillery pounding a building in Vovchansk that Ukrainian soldiers were using as a defensive position.
“Our assault units are fighting on the northern outskirts of Vovchansk. Enemy snipers from high-rises have become more active. From the south the enemy is resisting with tanks,” said the Two Majors Telegram channel, a Russian military blog.
Russian forces reportedly met little resistance when they crossed the border on Friday and have now advanced five miles into Ukraine, according to the US-based Institute for the Study of War.
Both sides have been pouring forces into the region which threatens Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city with a population of 1.3 million, for the first time since 2022.
Ukrainian officials confirmed heavy fighting but denied that Russian forces had captured Vovchansk.
“There are active shooting battles on the northern outskirts of the city,” said Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv Regional Administration.
Kharkiv will come into range of Russia’s artillery if its forces can push a few miles further south, but the British Ministry of Defence said that the assault was probably planned as a diversion to pull Ukrainian forces away from battlefields in Donbas, the focus of further potential Russian attacks.
“It is unlikely that Russia has built up sufficient combat power to the city without diverting additional forces into the area,” it said.
Thousands of people have evacuated from villages near the Ukraine-Russia border since Friday and reports also now state that women and children were fleeing Kharkiv.
