Fierce battles continue for a second day in northeastern Ukraine, where the Russian Defense Ministry said its troops captured five villages.
The ministry said Moscow’s forces had taken the villages of Pletenivka, Ohirtseve, Borysivka, Pylna and Strilecha in the Kharkiv region across the border from Russia’s Belgorod region.
Ukrainian officials didn’t confirm the Russian gains.
Kharkiv’s governor Oleh Syniehubov said there was fighting around all five of the villages, which are within 3 to 5 kilometers of the border.
“We clearly understand what forces the enemy is using in the north of our territory. Certainly, the escalation can grow, the pressure can increase, it can strengthen its military units, its military presence,” Syniehubov said, according to Reuters.
In his nightly video address on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said fighting was going on around seven border villages in the Kharkiv region and he called the situation in the southern Donetsk region especially tense.
Russian troops supported by armored units have moved into 1 kilometer into Kharkiv to try to establish a buffer zone that would prevent Ukrainian attacks into Russia’s border regions, according to a high-ranking Ukrainian military source who did not want to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject.
The Russian advances on the region have forced more than 1,700 civilians to flee the area, according to Ukrainian authorities.
