KYIV, Ukraine -- Russia’s Defense Ministry said Saturday that it is pulling back forces from two areas in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region where a Ukrainian counter-offensive has made significant advances in the past week.
Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the troops would be regrouped from the Balakliya and Izyum areas to the Donetsk region. Izyum was a major base for Russian forces in the Kharkiv region.
Konashenkov said the move is being made “in order to achieve the stated goals of the special military operation to liberate Donbas,’” one of the eastern Ukraine regions that Russia has declared sovereign.
The claim of pullback to concentrate on Donetsk is similar to the justification Russia gave for pulling back its forces from the Kyiv region earlier this year.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian officials on Saturday claimed major gains in a counteroffensive against Russian forces in the country's northeast, saying Ukrainian troops had cut off vital supplies to the front-line hotspot.
The reports followed several days of apparent advances by Ukraine south of Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, in what could become the biggest battlefield success for Ukrainian forces since they thwarted a Russian attempt to seize the capital of Kyiv at the start of the nearly seven-month war.
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko suggested the Ukrainian troops had retaken Kupiansk, a town along the main supply route to Izyum, long a focus on the Russian front line and the site of heavy artillery and another fighting. Nikolenko tweeted a photo showing soldiers of the 92nd Separate Mechanized Battalion of Ukraine in front of what he said was a government building in Kupiansk, 73 kilometers (45 miles) north of Izyum.
The Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU, hours later posted a message that it said showed its forces in Kupiansk, further suggesting it had been seized by Ukrainian troops. The Ukrainian military didn't immediately confirm entering the town, a railway hub that Russia seized in February when its mayor surrendered to avoid civilian casualties.