Russia mounting new border assaults in north, Ukraine says

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine rushed reinforcements to its northern border Friday after Russian forces attempted to break through Ukrainian lines along several sections, applying new pressure on forces already stretched thin along a 600-mile front.

The Russian assaults began around 5 a.m. Friday with massive shelling and aerial bombardments of Ukrainian positions followed by armored columns trying to punch through at several points along the border, according to a statement from Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense.

“As of now, these attacks have been repelled, and battles of varying intensity are ongoing,” the ministry said. “To strengthen the defense in this sector of the front, reserve units have been deployed.”

The breadth and intent of the Russian border incursions remained unclear. Military analysts have said Russia may be trying to force Ukraine to expend valuable resources in defending the region just as Russian assaults in eastern Ukraine are intensifying.

But a senior Ukrainian commander, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the current state of fighting, said Friday that the Russian attacks went beyond probing or intelligence gathering. The commander said the Kremlin’s immediate goal appeared to be to create a buffer zone along the border.

After heavy battles raged overnight and into the morning, smaller skirmishes continued into the evening as Russia sought to solidify control over several small villages located right on the border, a Ukrainian official familiar with the fighting said. While there are few civilians left in the areas that came under attack, at least one resident of the town of Vovchansk was killed in shelling, local officials said, and several more were wounded.

The opening of a new zone of fighting would present a steep challenge for Ukraine. It is unclear how deep the Ukrainian defenses at the border extended, how well they were manned and how they would hold up if Russia were to mount sustained offensive operations in this direction.

New deliveries of powerful Western weapons are on their way to Ukraine, but commanders say they have not arrived in numbers that would make a significant impact.

In the meantime, military analysts have said, Russia is likely to try to take advantage of the window before the weapons arrive in force to press new advances.

As they announced a new military aid package for Ukraine, White House officials said Friday that they did not expect Russia’s push at the border to achieve major battlefield gains.

“We have been anticipating that Russia would launch an offensive against Kharkiv, which appears now to have begun,” said John Kirby, a White House national security spokesperson. “We’ve been coordinating closely with Ukraine to help them prepare. At this time, we assess that Russia has intensified cross-border fires and launched initial incursions.”

Kirby said that in the coming weeks, “Russia will likely increase the intensity of fires and commit additional troops” to establish a shallow buffer zone but added, “We do not anticipate any major breakthroughs.”

Ukrainian officials and Western military analysts have also said that Moscow probably lacks the combat power to capture Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which is 20 miles from the Russian border.

Russian officials have not commented on the incursions.

It was unclear if Russia had captured any territory. The senior Ukrainian commander said that the country’s forces had stopped one Russian attack in the direction of a village called Lyptsi, less than 1 mile from the border in the Kharkiv region. That area was now considered a gray zone, meaning the fighting was too intense and the situation too fluid to say who had control over the land.

For Russia, even establishing a bridgehead across the border could expose the city of Kharkiv to artillery, allowing troops to escalate efforts to make the city unlivable. And it would help create a secure area that Russia could use as a staging point for deploying personnel and weaponry.

It would also let Russia protect towns and cities across the border from Ukrainian shelling.

The Kharkiv regional administration urged people from the villages close to the border to evacuate. Some, like Vovchansk, which has been badly shelled throughout the war, have been nearly empty for months.

A doctor at the hospital in Vovchansk, which is about 4 miles from the Russian border, said there was intense fighting all around the small town. “We’re currently evacuating people from the hospital,” he said, asking that his name not be used because he feared for his safety. “They’re hitting very hard and destroying everything.”

He said that Ukrainian soldiers appeared to be preventing an advance into the town but that the Russians were attacking tanks, armored fighting vehicles and warplanes. Many of the small villages in the border regions have been being evacuated for months as shelling intensified, and Ukrainian officials said Friday those efforts were continuing.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during a briefing in Kyiv, Ukraine, with his Slovak counterpart, Zuzana Caputova, said that Russian forces were met with “our troops, brigades and artillery,” adding, “There is a fierce battle in this direction; we met them with fire.”

© 2024 The New York Times Company