LIVE – War in Ukraine: Russia does not plan to conquer the city of Kharkiv, says Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that the offensive in northeastern Ukraine was a response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory, assuring that Moscow did not “at the moment” intend to conquer the great city of Kharkiv. “I said publicly that if this continued, we would be forced to create a security zone, a health zone. This is what we are doing,” he declared during a press conference from Harbin , in China.

“What is happening in the direction of Kharkiv is also their (Ukraine’s) fault, because they have bombed and continue to bomb residential areas in the (Russian) border territories, including including Belgorod,” he added, asserting that his army is progressing “every day” “as planned.”

The governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleg Synegoubov, where Moscow launched an offensive a week ago, indicated Friday that the Russians are destroying the city of Vovchansk and are advancing near that of Lukiantsi. “The enemy has started destroying Vovchansk, using tanks and artillery. It’s not just dangerous to be there, it’s virtually impossible,” he said in a briefing. . Some 200 civilians remain there, according to the same source, while the town, located around fifty kilometers from the regional capital Kharkiv, had around 18,000 inhabitants before the war.

A little further west, Russian forces have further progressed on their second axis of assault in the region. They are targeting the village of Loukiantsi, to open the way to Lyptsi, another locality on the road to Kharkiv. “Hostilities continue in Lukiantsi. Yes, there is an advance of the enemy in this locality. But our soldiers are still trying to hold this locality and destroy the occupier’s forces,” said Oleg Synegubov.

Russia claimed to have destroyed or intercepted more than 100 Ukrainian drones overnight from Thursday to Friday, during attacks launched against the southwest of Russian territory and annexed Crimea. In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had neutralized 51 aerial drones attacking Crimea, 44 over the Krasnodar region, six over the Belgorod region and another over the Kursk region.

“During the night, naval aviation and patrol boats of the Black Sea Fleet destroyed six naval drones in the waters of the Black Sea,” the source added. The Russian army very regularly claims to repel nighttime drone attacks, but rarely claims to have shot down so many.

Police in the Kharkiv region, the target of a Russian assault for a week, said Thursday that the Russian army was detaining 35 to 40 civilians in the town of Vovchansk, using them as “human shields” to protect a headquarters. military.

“Civilians who were trying to flee the territory occupied by the Russians are in captivity. According to initial data, there are 35-40 of them. The Russians are holding them together in one place as human shields, because it is near their center of command,” said the head of the regional police investigation department, Serguii Bolvinov. “And we know that the Russians cynically shot an elderly man who was trying to flee into territory controlled by Ukraine,” he added, assuring that the man was shot in the head.

A mother and her four-year-old child were killed in a drone attack on the village of Oktyabrsky, in the Russian border region of Belgorod, local governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced. A car in which four people were traveling was targeted by a drone, the mother died on the spot and her 4-year-old child died of his injuries in hospital, he explained, specifying that a Another drone had targeted a gas station near the village of Bessonovka.

The powerful sister of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, on Friday denied any arms deliveries to Moscow from Pyongyang, calling the accusations “absurd”. Kim Yo-jong said North Korea had “no intention of exporting its military technical capabilities to any country”, according to the official KCNA news agency.

She accused Seoul and Washington of “deceiving public opinion with a false rumor that weapons produced by… (us) are ‘destined for export to Russia’.” “What is most urgent for us is not to advertise or export something, but to improve the war preparations and the deterrence (capacity) of our army in terms of quality and quantity,” she said.

South Korea and the United States have repeatedly accused Pyongyang of supplying weapons to Russia while the latter two countries are subject to international sanctions: Russia for its invasion of Ukraine and North Korea for its nuclear program. Experts also warned of the North’s intensified testing and production of artillery and cruise missiles that could prepare deliveries to Moscow.

• Ukraine faces an “extremely difficult” situation. kyiv said it was containing the Russian military advance in the northeast of the country, despite an “extremely difficult” context according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, with Moscow making its largest territorial gains there since the end of 2022. “To date, the situation ( …) is generally under control, our soldiers are inflicting significant losses on the occupier,” he declared during a visit to Kharkiv. “But the area remains extremely difficult, which is why we are reinforcing our units.”

• “No significant change” on the front lines. The General Staff of the Ukrainian army reported “ten clashes on the Kharkiv axis”. “Our soldiers repelled eight attacks in the areas of Lyptsi, Staritsa and Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region,” he said, adding that the situation in Vovchansk is under control. There has been “no significant change in the situation” on the front lines, including in Vovchansk, although some troops had to “regroup” in the Pokrovsky region, near Donetsk, following ” intense fire and assaults,” according to the Ukrainian army.

• Moscow’s March Forward. Between May 9 and 15, the Russians conquered 257 km2 in the Kharkiv region alone, according to an AFP analysis on Thursday based on data provided by the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW). According to local emergency services, 8,800 people have been evacuated in recent days. In the city of Kharkiv, people evacuated from Vovchansk continue to arrive at a humanitarian center. Russian forces, however, “do not have the necessary forces to achieve a strategic breakthrough.” “They have neither the skills nor the capacity to do it,” said the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, American General Christopher Cavoli, on Thursday evening.

• “Barbaric” strikes by the Ukrainian army on Donetsk. Four women died Thursday in Ukrainian strikes on Donetsk, a city occupied by the Russians since 2014. “Four women born in 1986, 1980, 1961 and 1952 were killed on Petrovsky Street near the School No public transport stop. 106,” pro-Russian authorities said in a post on Telegram. The attack also left two injured, a child born in 2018 and a man born in 1987. The head of the pro-Russian regional administration, Denis Pushilin, described the strikes as “barbaric” on social media, blaming them to the Ukrainian army. kyiv has not commented on this accusation.

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