Zelensky: Halting Russian offensive near Kharkiv is 'number one task'

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said disrupting the Russian offensive near the north-eastern city of Kharkiv is the army's "number one task" at the moment.

"The accomplishment of this task depends on every soldier, every sergeant, every officer," he said in his daily video address published on Saturday evening.

Russian troops have occupied five Ukrainian border villages north of Kharkiv, the Defence Ministry in Moscow announced on Saturday, largely confirming unofficial Ukrainian reports.

The villages named were Strilecha, Krasne, Pylne and Borisivka, located around 30 kilometres north of Kharkiv near the town of Lyptsi, as well as Ohirtseve near the city of Vovchansk.

The Russian army claimed to have eliminated a large number of Ukrainian soldiers and destroyed their equipment in the offensive, which began on Thursday night. This has not been independently confirmed, however.

In his address, Zelensky mentioned defensive operations near the villages of Strilecha, Krasne, Morokhovets, Oliinykove, Lukyantsi, Hatyshche and Pletenivka.

"For two days now, our troops have been conducting counter-attack actions there, defending Ukrainian territory," the Ukrainian president said.

Moscow reported that 34 Ukrainian soldiers had been captured. The number could not be verified, but pictures of some of the alleged soldiers were published on Russian Telegram channels - despite this being prohibited under international humanitarian law.

The Ukrainian authorities said many residents of the border area were brought to safety. Ukraine has been expecting a Russian attack near the north-eastern city of Kharkiv for some time. According to official information, its lines of defence are holding.

Military observers do not yet assess the Russian offensive as a direct attack on Kharkiv.

The Russian army wants to tie down Ukrainian troops and at the same time advance its artillery so far that it can fire on the city, according to military observers.

Earlier, the Ukrainian general staff said fighting was occurring in nine places along the front line in the Kharkiv area.

The latest battles come after the general staff reported that the enemy was deploying "ground troops and technology."

The widely expected summer offensive was evident in a recent build-up of many tens of thousands of Russian soldiers near the border.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also threatened an offensive back in March, although military observers in Ukraine, Russia and abroad had not expected the target to be Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city.

The US Institute for the Study of War (ISW) referred to "limited operational objectives" aiming to draw Ukrainian forces away from "other critical sectors" of the front, while bringing Kharkiv back into the range of Russian artillery.

The limited deployment does not suggest "that Russian forces are immediately pursuing a large-scale sweeping offensive operation to envelop, encircle, and seize Kharkiv City, however," the ISW wrote.

Russian troops entered Kharkiv at the very beginning of the war in spring 2022, but were repelled.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has attacked the Russian border region of Belgorod to the north of Kharkiv, sending rocket artillery and drones, according to Russian reports. In Belgorod, rocket sirens could intermittently be heard in the morning.

In Rovenki, in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region of Ukraine, shelling caused a fire at an oil depot.

Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine more than two years ago. After a rapid advance by the Russians in the first few weeks, Kiev was later able to push back the troops sent from Moscow in some parts of the country.

In the meantime, however, the pendulum has swung back in the other direction: The Ukrainian military is having enormous problems with the supply of weapons, ammunition and soldiers amid daily Russian missile and drone attacks.

Russia occupies around a fifth of Ukraine's territory, including Crimea, which it illegally annexed in 2014.