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Russia has advanced 10km from the border with Ukraine towards the city of Kharkiv, Kyiv said, but added that its own forces had “stabilised” the Kremlin’s assault as it launched a massive drone counterstrike.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia’s forces had reached the first of three defensive lines protecting Ukraine’s second-largest city after a week-long offensive but argued that the advance was now blocked.
“Today, our defence forces have stabilised the Russians where they are located,” Zelenskyy said after visiting Kharkiv on Thursday. “The deepest point of their advance is 10km.”
“We understand that there will be tough battles ahead and the enemy is preparing for it,” said General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s top commander, adding that Russia had so far failed to break through Ukraine’s defences.
President Vladimir Putin said while visiting China on Friday that Moscow “currently has no plans to take Kharkiv”. However he added that Russian troops were “advancing daily”.
He was speaking after Ukraine unleashed its biggest drone attack to date on Russia, striking areas including the border region of Belgorod, and argued that the assault could require the creation of a buffer zone.
Ukraine’s military leadership has sent reinforcements to Kharkiv but has been wary of excessively drawing down its forces in other parts of the front.
Kyiv’s counterstrike on Russia involved more than 100 air and naval attack drones.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Telegram that its air defence systems had destroyed and intercepted 51 drones over Crimea, 44 over the Krasnodar region, and several others over the Belgorod region, Kursk and the Black Sea.
Ukraine’s strikes have targeted Russian military bases, oil depots and refineries in an attempt to weaken the country’s forces from afar.
But Kyiv has been constrained by curbs on the use of western-supplied arms against Russian territory. Washington has been concerned about the impact on oil prices and possible escalation of the conflict.
Zelenskyy expressed his frustration with the limits imposed by the west in comments on Friday. He suggested it was wrong to refer to Ukraine’s use of western weapons on Russian territory as an “offensive”, adding: “This is defence.”
Local authorities and Russian social media channels in the affected areas indicated that Ukrainian drones and drone debris hit an oil refinery and seaport in the Russian Black Sea city of Novorossiysk, causing a fire and power outages.
Belgorod’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said two people were killed when a gas station in the region was damaged by drones.
Power outages were reported in Sevastopol by the Russian-installed head Mikhail Razvozhayev, as a result of debris hitting a substation.
Additional reporting by Anastasia Stognei
