By Jaroslav Lukiv,BBC News
May 17, 2024
Russia is currently not seeking to capture Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv, President Vladimir Putin has claimed.
“There are no such plans today,” he said at the end of his visit to China.
But he stressed that Russian forces were advancing in the north-eastern Kharkiv region to create a “security zone” for Russia’s border region.
Mr Putin has spoken before of such a zone, but his public comments have not always reflected his aims in Ukraine.
Ukraine says the front line has stabilised, admitting that Russia has occupied a number of border villages.
Russia launched its offensive in the region last week, and fierce street fighting has been reported for the past several days in the key town of Vovchansk near the Russian border.
On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian troops had only managed to advance to the first of Ukraine’s three defensive lines in the region.
Similar comments were made by Ukraine’s top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi, who said the “enemy has extended the active combat zone to nearly 70km (43 miles)” in the region.
Overnight, Kharkiv – which had a pre-war population of nearly 1.4 million – again came under Russian drone attack and shelling, local officials said. The technological and industrial hub lies about 30km from the Russian border.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour is now in its third year, and there are currently no signs that the war – the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War Two – could end any time soon.
- Ukraine’s defence lines stretched as Russian troops advance
- Key weeks ahead for Russia’s war in Ukraine
Winding up his state visit to China in the north-eastern city of Harbin on Friday, Mr Putin said that seizing Kharkiv was not part of Russia’s current offensive in the region.
The Kremlin leader’s public statements have often failed to reflect his actions in Ukraine. Notoriously, he denied Russia was on the cusp of a full-scale invasion before it took place in February 2022.
However, few analysts believe Russia has the military capacity to capture Kharkiv.
Mr Putin said the aim was to guarantee the security of Russia’s border city of Belgorod, which has been frequently attacked by Ukraine’s armed forces.
The Kremlin leader said that Ukraine was “firing right on the city centre, on the residential areas” of Belgorod.
“And I had said publicly that if this continued, we would be forced to create a security zone – a sanitary zone,” he added.
Ukraine’s military has not commented on Russia’s claim that it was firing on residential parts of Belgorod. Kyiv has previously said it was hitting legitimate military targets in the region such as oil refineries.
Since Putin isn’t trustworthy at all, such statements have zero news value. Most probably, the whole intent is to sow confusion and distract from more important issues. 🙄
“Mr Putin said that seizing Kharkiv was not part of Russia’s current offensive in the region.”
The tiny, double-ugly nazi is fluent in kremkrapp.
What the turds want to do is occupy large swatch of land close enough to Kharkiv to line up their artillery and turn it into rubble.
In fact what needs to happen is the opposite:
A sanitary zone inside putlerstan including Belgorod.
Ukraine now needs five extra divisions. Europe should supply them.
NOW.
In other news, some guy living in Croatia makes sense of Putin’s recent power shuffle:
“Garry Kasparov: Putin Sends Clear Message”
https://charter97.org/en/news/2024/5/17/595368/
“Instead of him [Shoigu] they put in a fairly capable economist and experienced official. I compared him on my Twitter with Albert Speer [Hitler’s personal architect, Reich Minister of Armaments in Nazi Germany — Ed.]. This is a person whose task is to use resources as efficiently as possible. Belousov marks the continuation of the war of attrition.”
🤨
Uh, sorry, Foccusser, the S.P.E.E.R. bug did strike again! Can you get my comment with a quote by Garri Kasparov out of the digital garbage can, please? Pretty plesse? 👋☹⚠️
Putler is saying he can’t take Kharkiv. He would certainly take it if he could, or had the manpower to do it. Taking Kharkiv and holding onto it would take more cannon fodder than russia has in the whole of Ukraine.
The measly 6km they have moved in the region is not going to stop any Ukrainian attacks into russia, not when Ukraine posses drones with a range of 1000 km. I think this is just to divert Ukrainian resources from elsewhere, because he knows once the weapons do arrive, it will be a totally different fight.
You’re my hero, F1! Thanks! 🖖😁👍
Thanks GOD,I WAS NEARLY WORRIED……………………………………….
Never believe a word what a ruskie says, especially this one.