More than 4,000 people are fleeing cross-border Russian attacks in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region

More than 4,000 people have been evacuated from border areas in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, the local governor said on Sunday, after a surprise Russian cross-border offensive began there on Friday.

“A total of 4,073 people were evacuated,” Governor Oleg Synegubov wrote on social media, a day after Russian forces claimed the capture of five villages in the region.

Synegubov said that a 63-year-old man was killed by artillery fire in the village of Glyboke on Sunday and a 38-year-old man was injured in Vovchansk, a border town of about 3,000 people before the current offensive.

Ukraine said on Friday that Russia had launched an attack in the Kharkiv region, making small incursions into a border zone from which it was pushed back nearly two years ago.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that Ukrainian troops had carried out counterattacks on border villages in the Kharkiv region.

“Our most important task now is to thwart Russian offensive plans,” he said.

The troops must “give the initiative back to Ukraine,” the president emphasized and again called on the allies to speed up arms deliveries.

(AFP)

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