Thousands of residents of the eastern Ukrainian border region of Kharkiv are being evacuated to safety amid ongoing Russian offensive operations there.
About 4,000 people had already left the area in the past two days, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov wrote in Telegram on Sunday.
Many of them were able to stay with friends and family, while shelter was provided for others, he said. Syniehubov also published photos of people gathered at collection points with luggage and some with pets.
More than two years after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor, Ukraine is experiencing acute difficulties in defending itself. This is partly due to recent delays in the delivery of US military equipment and ammunition.
Russian forces launched an offensive in the border area towards Kharkiv in the early hours of Friday, raising fears of a campaign to take Ukraine’s second-largest city.
The Russian Defense Ministry says several Ukrainian border villages near the city of Vovchansk have been captured. On Sunday, Moscow said another four villages had been captured.
Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi has described the situation there as “difficult”.
“This week the situation in the Kharkov region has deteriorated significantly,” Syrskyi wrote in Telegram on Sunday. “There are ongoing fighting in the border areas along the state border with the Russian Federation.”
While conceding that the situation is “difficult” and that Russian attackers had achieved “partial successes” in some areas, he said: “Ukrainian forces are doing everything they can to hold defense lines and positions.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has repeatedly called for more international assistance in his country’s defense, recently declared that stopping Russia’s offensive in Kharkiv is now “objective number one.”
Just across the border in Russia’s Belgorod region, a multi-storey residential building was severely damaged in an attack, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Sunday. At least six people were killed in the attack, the report said.
The ministry said the building was hit by falling debris from a Ukrainian Tochka U missile. This could not initially be independently verified.
The region’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said at least 19 people were injured. Initial reports that there were also fatalities were not confirmed.
Photos of a destroyed vertical section of a much larger apartment building were published on social networks. According to media reports, people may still be trapped under the rubble. Earlier in the day, a rocket alert had been issued in the region.
There was initially no official response from the Ukrainian side. However, some Ukrainian media have cast doubt on the Russian story. The Ukrinform agency, citing an expert, wrote that the destruction visible in the photos suggested that the building could have been deliberately blown up by Russia to provoke and justify its own attacks.
A fire also broke out at an oil refinery in southern Russia after a drone attack, an official said on Sunday.
The night attack in the Volgograd region was repulsed by Russian air defenses, Governor Andrei Bocharov wrote on Telegram.
However, the falling drone exploded and caused a fire on the refinery site, which has now been extinguished. There were no casualties, the governor said.
Moscow has been waging a large-scale war against Ukraine for more than two years. To disrupt Russia’s infrastructure and reduce war revenues, the Ukrainians, in turn, have repeatedly targeted oil refineries hundreds of miles deep within the country.
