{"id":48462,"date":"2024-05-11T13:28:19","date_gmt":"2024-05-11T13:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/11\/they-are-erasing-streets-russian-attacks-bring-war-nearer-kharkiv\/"},"modified":"2024-05-11T13:28:19","modified_gmt":"2024-05-11T13:28:19","slug":"they-are-erasing-streets-russian-attacks-bring-war-nearer-kharkiv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/11\/they-are-erasing-streets-russian-attacks-bring-war-nearer-kharkiv\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018They Are Erasing Streets\u2019: Russian Attacks Bring War Nearer Kharkiv"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/11\/multimedia\/11ukraine-kharkiv-01-lhwc\/11ukraine-kharkiv-01-lhwc-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\u2018They Are Erasing Streets\u2019: Russian Attacks Bring War Nearer Kharkiv\" title=\"\u2018They Are Erasing Streets\u2019: Russian Attacks Bring War Nearer Kharkiv\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After all-night air raid alarms, a weary Kharkiv woke up Saturday morning to a heavy gray sky and the disconcerting news that the Russian Army continued to press its advance on nearby Ukrainian territory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">All night, dull explosions from battlefields 40 miles away echoed across Kharkiv, Ukraine\u2019s second largest city. On Saturday morning, a day after Russian forces seized several villages along the border and Ukraine <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/10\/world\/europe\/russia-border-assaults-north-ukraine.html\" title=\"\">rushed reinforcements<\/a> to the area, the ghostly wail of air raid sirens continued to drift over the city\u2019s deserted parks and long, empty boulevards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Thousands of people are fleeing the border areas and arriving at shelters in Kharkiv.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Tetiana Novikova is one of them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Until Friday, she had spent her entire 55 years in Vovchansk, a small town near the Russian border. She was born there, married there, worked in a factory there and raised two children there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But the shelling became so terrifying that she and her family made the painful decision to abandon the home they had lived in for decades. On Friday evening, she arrived with her elderly parents, shaken, hungry and a bit lost, at a Kharkiv school that has been turned into a displaced persons\u2019 reception center.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The only people left in Vovchansk, Ms. Novikova said, \u201care the old and the disabled, and they can\u2019t move.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIf a missile hits where they live,\u201d she added, \u201cthe streets will be full of dead bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">More than two years into it, the war in Ukraine continues to find new zones of misery.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Friday at dawn, Russian forces launched a complex assault that unleashed fighter jets, heavy artillery, ground troops and armor against a slice of Ukraine\u2019s northeastern border with Russia that had been relatively quiet. Russian troops stormed across the frontier and captured several villages and a group of beleaguered Ukrainian soldiers, according to images widely circulating on social media.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">By Saturday, Russian forces were still shelling Vovchansk but there had been no major change in the front line. <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/mod_russia\/38680\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Russia\u2019s defense ministry<\/a> claimed to have captured five border settlements that lie along two main axes that Moscow\u2019s troops appear to have followed, but Ukraine\u2019s general staff said its forces were fighting defensive battles and mounting \u201ccounteroffensive measures\u201d around Vovchansk and another town, Lyptsi.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Ukrainians referred to the border areas as the \u201cgray zone,\u201d meaning that the fighting was too intense and the situation too fluid to say who had control.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Military analysts believe the new offensive is unlikely to reach the streets of Kharkiv. The Ukrainian military has built elaborate defenses around the city \u2014 digging miles of trenches and sewing the landscape with glistening razor wire, mines and countless small cement pyramids that block tanks \u2014 \u201cdragons\u2019 teeth,\u201d as the soldiers here call them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But analysts agree that this attack comes at an especially difficult time for Ukraine. Its forces are worn out, stretched thin and running low on ammunition. Supplies from a long-delayed American aid package are only beginning to trickle to the front lines, and the Ukrainians are more vulnerable than they have been in months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt is likely the coming weeks will be a very grim affair for the Ukrainian ground forces in the east,\u201d<em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\"> <\/em>said Mick Ryan, a retired Australian general and fellow at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based research group, in <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/mickryan.substack.com\/p\/russia-advances-into-kharkiv?utm_source=post-email-title&amp;publication_id=1198399&amp;post_id=144521251&amp;utm_campaign=email-post-title&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;r=1ogtdk&amp;triedRedirect=true&amp;utm_medium=email\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">an initial assessment<\/a> of the offensive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWhile the attacks at present appear to be small in scale,\u201d he said, the purpose is to \u201cdent Ukrainian morale \u2014 both civilian and military.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIf the Ukrainians decide to hold ground at all costs, they will lose more of their increasingly smaller army,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The result, he said, could be \u201ca severe test,\u201d and \u201cone of the toughest moments for Ukraine in the war so far.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Russian forces sent reconnaissance and sabotage units across the border early Friday followed by <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/10\/world\/europe\/russia-border-assaults-north-ukraine.html\" title=\"\">devastating artillery strikes and aircraft bombs<\/a> dropped deeper inside Ukrainian territory, according the Ukrainian news reports and the country\u2019s ministry of defense. Video footage widely circulated on Ukrainian media channels revealed the aftermath in Vovchansk: fires, splintered trees and elegant, cream-colored buildings trimmed in white with giant holes punched through them and their walls turned into cascades of tumbling bricks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">With heavy shelling continuing and frontline reports patchy, it was difficult to assess on Saturday morning how much territory the Ukrainians may have lost. Some military analysts estimated that the Russian advance left them in control of at least 30 square kilometers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">American officials remained hopeful that Ukrainian troops would ultimately stop this Russian assault. For months, the Ukrainians have been preparing for it, and President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his overnight speech that Ukraine was sending reinforcements to the Kharkiv area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Still, Ukraine must be careful how it responds, given how thin its troops are stretched. Russian forces have been slowly but steadily chewing through Ukrainian defenses 150 miles south, heading toward the small but strategically located town old factory town of <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/25\/world\/europe\/ukraine-russia-war-chasiv-yar.html\" title=\"\">Chasiv Yar<\/a>. Recent reports indicate that Russian troops have advanced close enough to a critical highway to nearly cut Ukrainian supply lines to the town. The Russians attacked the norther border area precisely to distract the Ukrainian forces in this area, Ukrainian military officials said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The northern border villages where fighting now rages have been fought over before. Vovchansk has experienced the full war cycle \u2014 occupied by Russian troops after the full-scale invasion in February 2022, liberated in September 2022 and sporadically shelled since then.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Life there, in recent days, has become untenable. There\u2019s no phone service or electricity, and little food. All the shops are closed. Even the Ukrainian soldiers have left, residents reported, though Ukrainian officials have said their soldiers are managing to defend the town, perhaps from the outskirts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt\u2019s impossible to go back,\u201d Ms. Novikova said. \u201cThe Russians are destroying everything, she said. \u201cThey are erasing streets.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While her family was hunkered down in their house on Friday, she said that a Russian aircraft bomb took out a nearby school. The blast wave shattered windows and rocked homes blocks away.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cAnd that\u2019s just one bomb,\u201d she said. \u201cThey are dropping dozens.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Oleksandra Mykolyshyn contributed reporting from Kharkiv, and <!-- -->Marc Santora<!-- --> and <!-- -->Constant M\u00e9heut<!-- --> from Kyiv, Ukraine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/11\/world\/europe\/ukraine-russia-kharkiv.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After all-night air raid alarms, a weary Kharkiv woke up Saturday morning to a heavy gray sky and the disconcerting news that the Russian Army continued to press its advance on nearby Ukrainian territory. All night, dull explosions from battlefields 40 miles away echoed across Kharkiv, Ukraine\u2019s second largest city. On Saturday morning, a day [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/11\/multimedia\/11ukraine-kharkiv-01-lhwc\/11ukraine-kharkiv-01-lhwc-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1179,5191,49000,25346,35115,1461,6269,3102],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48462"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48464,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48462\/revisions\/48464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}