Ukraine reinforces border as thousands flee invading Russians

Ukraine was last night rushing re-enforcements to the Russian border after a surprise attack saw at least nine villages captured.

The border villages near the second city of Kharkiv were under “round the clock” fire, Ukrainian official warned as desperate residents were evacuated under heavy shelling.

Alexander Syrsky, commander of Ukraine’s military, said that the situation had “worsened significantly” in the border area.

“The situation is difficult but the Ukrainian defence forces are doing everything to hold defensive lines and positions and inflict defeat on the enemy,” he said.

Both sides said that they had rushed extra equipment, weapons and soldiers to the area, effectively marking the opening of a new front line in the war.

One Ukrainian soldier confirmed that the Russian attack had come as a surprise.

“There was no first line of defence,” he told the BBC. “We saw it. The Russians just walked in.”

Fighting on the front line has focussed on the Donbas region, around Chasiv Yar and Avdiivka and towards Kupiansk, and analysts were split over Russia’s ambitions with its attack from its Belgorod region towards Kharkiv on Friday.

Some argued that the attack was a diversionary tactic to pull Ukrainian forces away from the main Russian effort in Donbas but others said that Kharkiv may be a target.

The US-based Institute for the Study of War said that the Russian forces did not appear to be large enough to capture the city, although they still posed a significant threat.

“The proximity of Kharkiv City to the border magnifies the significance of limited Russian tactical gains,” it said. “Russian forces do not have to advance much further to begin threatening Kharkiv City with routine shelling.”

Russian forces have enjoyed an advantage in soldier numbers and weapons over the past six months because of a delay in US military aid reaching Ukraine as well as Ukrainian army recruitment problems, and they have intensified their attacks before new US equipment arrives on the battlefield and a fresh mobilisation drive kicks in.

From May 18, new laws will give Ukrainian draft officers more power and the mobilisation age will drop to 25 from 27, which the Ukrainian ministry of defence said would give the army a boost.

“This situation, when some people are fighting at the front lines while others are living their quiet lives, is obviously coming to an end,” Dmitry Lazutkin, a Ukrainian ministry of defence spokesman, told a Ukrainian television station.

In Belgorod, a city in Russia 20 miles north of the border with Ukraine where fighting has focussed, an alleged Ukrainian missile hit a residential block yesterday.

Video showed a gaping hole in a 10-storey residential block and emergency workers clambering over rubble and gingerly picking through the remains of people’s apartments as they looked for survivors.

Russia’s emergency service said that at least 20 people had been injured in the alleged attack and seven people had been killed.

Ukraine-based analysts have said that the bomb may have been accidentally dropped on Belgorod by a Russian warplane aiming for towns in Ukraine.

05:00 PM BST

Today’s live blog is now closed

That’s all for today, thanks for following along. Here is a summary of the day:

• Russian forces pushed deeper into the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine, claiming on Sunday that they have now captured nine villages. Kyiv said that the situation was “complicated” but that it was doing its best to hold its defensive positions. More than 4,000 people have evacuated over the weekend.

• An apartment block partially collapsed in the Russian border city of Belgorod on Sunday, leaving at least five dead and 20 injured. Officials blamed Ukrainian shelling for the building’s destruction. The Kremin called it a “barbaric” attack. There was no comment from Kyiv.

• Russia attacked 106 infrastructure facilities in nine regions in Ukraine over the past day, the Ukrainian defence ministry said on Sunday. Thousands of households across seven regions are suffering power outages due to the attacks, according to the energy ministry.

• The “quiet life” is over, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence has warned young men, as it introduces a tougher conscription law next week. Dmitry Lazutkin, the department’s spokesman, said that after the new mobilisation law is introduced on May 18 nearly all Ukrainian men will be drafted into the army.

• Vladimir Putin has taken personal control of the unit that organises Russian arms sales, two months after data showed that overseas deals have plummeted since he invaded Ukraine.

• Several hundred thousand people protested peacefully in pouring rain on Saturday in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, against a Kremlin-inspired law that will undermine West-backed NGOs. Many of the protesters waved the EU flag and chanted “slaves” at police during the march, one of the biggest ever seen in Tbilisi.

04:45 PM BST

Five killed in alleged Ukrainian strike on Russian border city

Five bodies have been recovered from the rubble of a building hit by a Ukrainian strike in the Russian border city of Belgorod, officials said on Sunday.

The Russian defence ministry said a Ukrainian Tochka-U missile hit a “residential district” in the city after it was intercepted by air defences. It did not provide any evidence for the claim.

“In total five bodies have been taken out of the rubble,” Russia’s emergency situations ministry said on social media, after earlier reporting that four bodies had been found.

Emergency services were quoted by the TASS news agency as saying that 20 people were also injured.

Officials said rescue work had to be repeatedly interrupted because of air raid alerts.

04:44 PM BST

Pope Francis calls for peace as fighting in the northeast of Ukraine intensifies

04:17 PM BST

Pictured: Kharkiv evacuations continue

04:13 PM BST

Artillery and air strikes increase around Kharkiv, all areas of the northern border being targeted

Air and artillery strikes have increased around Kharkiv throughout the day, the regional governor has said.

“The occupiers continue shelling the civilian population. During this day, the number of massive artillery and airstrikes increased,” Oleh Syniehubov posted on Telegram.

“Vovchansk, Liptsi and all areas of the northern border are under enemy fire almost 24 hours a day. The situation is complicated. Today, information was received about two victims in Liptsy and Vovchansk - a 46-year-old woman and a 74-year-old man,” he said.

“The number of settlements where active hostilities are ongoing has increased. The Defense Forces of Ukraine continue the defense operation.”

Around 500 people are still in Vovchansk, he said, which has become the focal point of the battle.

04:06 PM BST

Kremlin says Ukrainian strike on Belgorod ‘barbaric’

Russian President Vladimir Putin was briefed by acting emergencies minister and Belgorod region governor about the “barbaric” missile attack of Ukraine on an apartment block in the city of Belgorod, the TASS news agency cited Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, as saying on Sunday.

According to Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor, at least two people were killed in the attack and there might be more people under the rubble.

Russian defence ministry said Ukraine attacked Belgorod with Tochka ballistic missiles and Adler and RM-70 Vampire (MLRS) multiple launch rocket systems.

Moscow has not yet provided any evidence that Ukraine was behind the attack and Kyiv has not commented.

04:03 PM BST

Russia ‘seizes nine villages in deep advance’ into Ukraine

Russia captured nine villages in its surprise invasion of Ukraine’s northern border, the Kremlin said on Sunday.

Troops advanced into settlements on the border with Russia’s Belgorod region in an offensive that began on Friday.

The Russian defence ministry declared on Sunday that its forces had now taken Hatyshche, Krasne, Morokhovets and Oliinykove - all of which lie north of Ukraine’s heavily-bombarded second city of Kharkiv.

The ministry said the Russian forces had “advanced deeply into the enemy defences”.

Ukrainian officials on Saturday insisted that fighting was ongoing in villages on the border and Russia’s forces were being “contained” there.

Ukrainian and Russian military bloggers said that both sides were pouring equipment and soldiers into the area north of Kharkiv as fighting intensified.

03:37 PM BST

Pictured: the search and rescue operations in Belgorod

03:32 PM BST

Russia attacked 106 infrastructure facilities in Ukraine in past day

Russia attacked 106 infrastructure facilities in nine regions in Ukraine over the last day, the Ukrainian defence ministry said on Sunday.

Thousands of households across seven regions are suffering power outages due to the attacks, according to the energy ministry.

In the past day, more than 1,100 customers in the Kharkiv region lost power, 4,600 in Donetsk, more than 2,400 in Zaporizhzhia, 450 in Mykolaiv, more than 500 in Sumy, 25,800 in Kherson and 1,500 in Chernihiv .

The situation is worse in Donetsk, the Kyiv Independent reported, where 47,700 customers are disconnected from the power grid.

03:00 PM BST

‘Quiet life is over’ for young men of Ukraine ahead of tougher conscription law

The “quiet life” is over, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence has warned young men, as it introduces a tougher conscription law next week.

Dmitry Lazutkin, the department’s spokesman, said that after the new mobilisation law is introduced on May 18 nearly all Ukrainian men will be drafted into the army.

“This situation, when some people are fighting at the front lines while others are living their quiet lives, is obviously coming to an end,” he told Espresso TV, a Ukrainian television station.

The country has rushed through legal reforms to give military recruiters more power to find and force men into the army while closing loopholes used to dodge service.

The new laws will lower the mobilisation age of men to 25 from 27 and include giving draft officers more powers to punish refuseniks, including blocking bank accounts.

“With such an enemy as Russia, the whole country needs to mobilise,” said Mr Lazutkin.

Read more here.

02:29 PM BST

Pictures emerge of wounded Ukrainian soldiers on Vovchansk frontline

The town of Vovchansk, with a prewar population of 17,000, has emerged as a focal point in the battle around Kharkiv since Friday.

Volodymyr Tymoshko, the head of the Kharkiv regional police, said Russian forces were in the outskirts of the town and approaching from three directions. A Russian tank was spotted along a major road leading to the town, Tymoshko said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that halting Russia’s offensive in the northeast was a priority, and that Kyiv’s troops were continuing counteroffensive operations in seven villages around the Kharkiv region.

02:22 PM BST

Russia recruiting far-Right extremists to launch attacks in the West

Russia is recruiting far-Right extremists to carry out attacks in the UK and Nato countries, The Telegraph understands.

Intelligence sources have said that terrorists recruited by Russian GRU agents have been responsible for a series of attacks in Western Europe and the US in the last six months.

The Telegraph understands that extremists are being recruited by undercover officers of the GRU – the Russian military intelligence service – and members of the mercenary group Wagner.

It comes after the expulsion of Col Maxim Elovik, the Russian defence attache to the UK, who is believed to be a GRU operative.

Read more from Sean Rayment here.

02:00 PM BST

Russia’s state owned energy companies report biggest annual loss in 25 years, MoD says

01:58 PM BST

Belgorod building roof collapsed as first responders searched the rubble

As Russian emergency services scoured the rubble for survivors, the roof collapsed and people ran for their lives, dust and rubble falling behind them, Reuters reported.

Russia’s defence ministry said the attack, which it is blaming on Ukraine and calling a “a terrorist attack on residential areas”, took place at 08:40 GMT and involved at least 12 missiles.

Russian news agencies said at least seven people had been killed and 17 injured, including two children. Others were still trapped under the rubble.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on the attack.

01:14 PM BST

Kyiv Independent reporter in Vovchansk shows destruction, details pace of bombing

12:53 PM BST

‘Ukrainian missile’ strikes Russian apartment building in Belgorod

A Ukrainian missile hit an apartment block inside Russia, the Kremlin said as cross-border attacks intensified.

Footage showed a large section of the 10-storey block in Bolgorod, which has been under Ukrainian attack for months, hit by a projectile and later collapsing.

At least seven people were killed and more than a dozen injured, Moscow claimed. The Telegraph could not immediately able to verify the Russian claims.

The Russian defence ministry said the building was hit with fragments of a Tochka-U that was intercepted by Russian air defences. Ukraine also used Vampire, Olkha missiles and rockets in the attack, the ministry said.

Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian targets are extremely rare.

It came as Russian infantry units crossed the border just south of Belgorod, in the first raid of its kind since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

12:48 PM BST

Pictured: The aftermath in Belgorod

12:45 PM BST

Russian attempts to break through Ukrainian defences have failed, Ukraine’s commander in chief says

Russian troops are continuing their attacks in several areas, although attempts to break through Ukraine’s defenses have been halted, Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Sunday.

The situation “is changing rapidly” in the Kupiansk, Siversk, Lyman, and Pokrovsk directions amid ongoing fighting, Syrskyi is quoted as saying in the Kyiv Independent.

“The enemy has partial success in some areas, and in others, (Ukraine’s) Defense Forces are pushing the enemy out and improving their tactical position,” the general said.

Meanwhile Russia offered competing claims, declaring that they captured another four villages in the Kharkiv region today.

12:20 PM BST

Czech president says not all occupied Ukrainian land can be retaken

Petr Pavel, the Czech president, has admitted that Ukraine will not win back territory lost to Russia since 2014.

In an interview with the Austrian newspaper Die Presse, he said that he could not see Ukraine returning to its 1991 borders.

The Kremlin illegally annexed parts of Donbas, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in 2022 and Crimea 2014.
“It is unlikely that Ukraine will be able to regain all of its territory within its internationally recognised borders, at least in the foreseeable future,” Mr Pavel said.

Pavel is a former Czech army general and has been a stalwart supporter of Ukraine’s fight against Russia.

Analysts have said that delays in US weapons and ammunition resupplies to frontline Ukrainian forces handed Russian forces a vital advantage over the past six months which has allowed it to push back Ukrainian soldiers. A Nato-backed Ukrainian counteroffensive failed to dislodge well-dug Russian positions last year.

11:43 AM BST

Putin takes personal control of oversea arms sales unit

Vladimir Putin has taken personal control of the unit that organises Russian arms sales, two months after data showed that overseas deals have plummeted since he invaded Ukraine, writes James Kilner.

The Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSMTC) has been under the control of the Russian Ministry of Defence since it was set up in 2004 but will now report directly to Putin.

Data released in March by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) showed that Russian arms sales have fallen by more than 50% and that it now ranks behind France as the world’s third biggest arms exporter. The US is the world’s largest arms exporter.

Analysts have said that Western Arms sales had been an important cash earner for Russia but since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin has prioritised sending kit to its armies in Ukraine rather than selling it abroad.

11:38 AM BST

Russia claims to have captured another four villages in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region

Russian troops seized another four villages - Hatyshche, Krasne, Morokhovets, Oliinykove - in Kharkiv region in Ukraine, Russia’s defence ministry said.

Moscow said on Saturday it had captured five villages, while Kyiv said it was repulsing the attacks and battling for control of the settlements.

11:35 AM BST

‘Russian offensive operations in northern Kharkiv Oblast likely aim to draw Ukrainian forces from other sectors of the front’ ISW assesses

11:20 AM BST

Thousands march against Kremlin-inspired law in Georgia

Several hundred thousand people protested peacefully in pouring rain on Saturday in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, against a Kremlin-inspired law that will undermine West-backed NGOs, writes James Kilner.

Many of the protesters waved the EU flag and chanted “slaves” at police during the march, one of the biggest ever seen in Tbilisi.

Police have been accused of using excessive force to disburse protests but they didn’t interfere with the march on Saturday.

Georgia’s pro-Russia Georgian Dream government says it needs to introduce the so-called “foreign agents” law to increase security but critics have said that it will be used to crush civil society.

This week, hooded men beat up several prominent opposition leaders. Posters were also plastered onto the doors of NGO offices, accusing their directors of being traitors.

11:18 AM BST

Ukraine’s military chief warns of difficult situation in Kharkiv region

Ukraine’s military chief said on Sunday his country’s forces were facing a difficult situation in fighting in the Kharkiv region, but that they were doing all they could to hold the line.

“Units of the Defense Forces are fighting fierce defensive battles, the attempts of the Russian invaders to break through our defenses have been stopped,” Syrskyi wrote on Telegram .

“The situation is difficult, but the Defense Forces of Ukraine are doing everything to hold defensive lines and positions, inflict damage on the enemy,” he added.

10:47 AM BST

Fighting intensifies north of Kharkiv

Fighting has intensified in an area north of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv that has been the focus of a surprise cross-border assault from Russia since Friday morning, writes James Kilner.

Ukrainian and Russian military bloggers said that both sides were pouring equipment and soldiers into the area, roughly 25 miles from Kharkiv.

Videos published by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence showed emergency workers clearing rubble from destroyed houses in  the town of Vovchansk and evacuating the mainly elderly residents. Reports said that the town, which had a pre-war population of 17,000 people, was now virtually empty.

Russian forces have claimed the capture of at least five border villages since Friday and on Sunday morning they said that they had secured more territory. This has been denied by Ukraine which has said that it is holding off the attack.

10:35 AM BST

‘Thwarting Russia’s offensive plans is the number one task right now,’ Zelesnky says

10:19 AM BST

Russia says it downs six drones launched by Ukraine and two ballistic missiles

Russia’s defence ministry claimed this morning that its air defence systems destroyed six attack drones and two ballistic missiles that Ukraine launched overnight.

The two Soviet-era Tochka conventional ballistic missiles were downed over the Belgorod region, the ministry said.

Three drones were downed over the Bryansk region, two over Lipetsk and one was intercepted over the Vologorod region.

The defence ministry claims could not be independently verified.

10:10 AM BST

Residents fleeing the border describe ‘constant incoming fire’

“The city is constantly under fire,” Oleksiy Kharkivsky, a senior police officer from Vovchansk helping to coordinate the evacuations told AFP.

“Everything in the city is being destroyed... You hear constant explosions, artillery, mortars. The enemy is hitting the city with everything they have,” he said, speaking at an evacuation point in a village near Vovchansk.

He estimated that around 1,500 people had been evacuated or fled Vovchansk since Friday and said there had been 32 drone strikes on the town over the past 24 hours.

He said evacuation teams had come under fire “many times”.

One 61-year-old woman, Lyubov Nikolaieva, told AFP she had fled the border village of Lyptsi along with her 81-year-old mother.

“There is constant incoming fire: those guided aerial bombs and mortar shells whistling overhead. It became very scary,” she said.

10:00 AM BST

Attacks on Kharkiv over the past day kill three and injure five

Russian troops attacked 27 settlements in the Kharkiv region over the past day, killing three people and injuring five, according to the local governor.

A massive attack on Vovchansk, a town three miles south of the Russian border, damaged dozens of houses on Saturday and killed a 51-year-old man, governor Oleh Syniehubov said. The injured, he said, included an 83-year-old woman and four men aged between 39 and 64.

A 38-year-old man was also wounded in Vovchansk in another attack overnight.

According to Ukraine’s state emergency service, dozens of houses and residential buildings were destroyed and damaged after morning airstrikes.

The service said that a family of four was trapped under the rubble and that first responders rescued two men while another one was able to get out on his own.. A 73-year-old woman was killed, Syniehubov said.

Russian forces also shelled the village of Hlyboke killing a 63-year-old man, the governor said.

09:40 AM BST

Ukraine-launched drone sparks fire at Russia’s Volgograd refinery, regional governor says

An overnight drone attack launched from Ukraine sparked a brief fire at an oil refinery in the Volgograd region in southern Russia, the region’s governor said on Sunday.

“The fire was extinguished. There were no casualties, Andrey Bocharov, the governor, said on the local administration’s Telegram channel.

The Russian Telegram channel Baza, which is close to the security services, posted photos of flames rising into dark skies over what looked like an industrial building with a tall chimney.

The reports could not immediately be verified. There was no immediate comment from oil producer Lukoil, which owns the refinery, or from Kyiv.

09:28 AM BST

Good morning

Hello and welcome to the Telegraph’s live blog on the war in Ukraine as Kyiv battles a surprise Russian offensive in Kharkiv. Follow along as we bring you all of the latest updates throughout the day.

First up this morning:

Russia has invaded Ukraine again, Lord Cameron warns

Russia has invaded Ukraine again, Lord Cameron warned, as troops crossed over the border to open a new front near the second city of Kharkiv.

Russia’s defence ministry said its troops had taken five border villages in the region, in what is believed to be the first time its forces had launched a cross-border attack since the invasion in 2022.

Ukrainian officials insisted that fighting was ongoing in those villages and Russia’s forces were being “contained” there.

Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron told Sky News: “It’s extremely dangerous. It only underlines that this a unjustified, illegal invasion by Putin into an independent sovereign country and he has now, as it were, invaded it again from the north of Kharkiv.”

The local governor of the border region under attack on Sunday morning said that more than 4,000 people have fled over the weekend.

Ukrainian officials had warned for weeks that Moscow might try to attack its northeastern border regions, pressing its advantage as Ukraine struggles with delays in Western aid and manpower shortages.

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