2024-04-22 18:53:22
(Keystone-ATS) A Russian strike on Monday destroyed the television tower in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, which has been increasingly targeted. Authorities also say they expect a “difficult period” on the front starting next month.
A sign of the constant pressure from Russian forces, Moscow also claimed Monday the capture of a new village in the east, where Ukrainian troops have been facing a lack of men and ammunition for months.
Some 240 meters high, the Kharkiv television tower collapsed halfway, noted an AFP journalist. It had already been damaged in March 2022, at the start of the Russian invasion.
“The occupiers attacked a television infrastructure in Kharkiv. During the alert, the employees hid. There were no victims,” said Oleg Synegoubov, the regional governor.
He mentioned “interruptions in the signal for digital television”. Images taken shortly after the impact and posted on social networks show the upper part of the building falling in a cloud of gray smoke.
The Russians have increasingly targeted Kharkiv, which had some 1.4 million inhabitants before the war and is located close to the border, in recent weeks. Its energy infrastructure was notably targeted, causing major power outages at the end of March.
President Volodymyr Zelensky visited newly dug defensive lines in this region at the beginning of April, the front being about forty kilometers from Kharkiv.
“Situation difficile”
On the eastern front, where Russian soldiers have been gaining ground since the fall of the fortress town of Avdiïvka in February, Moscow has claimed the conquest of Novomykhaïlivka, around thirty kilometers from Donetsk.
This village is also close to Vougledar, a town at the junction of the southern and eastern fronts that Russia has been trying to seize for two years.
In recent weeks, several other villages have fallen, with Russian troops taking advantage of the Ukrainian army’s difficulties due to delays in mobilization and the delivery of Western aid.
In this context, Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov predicted on Monday that the situation on the front will worsen around mid-May and early June, which will be a “difficult period” for Ukraine.
The Russians are engaged in “a complex operation”, warned Mr. Boudanov, questioned about the state of the front, in an interview with the BBC’s Ukrainian language service. “We believe that a rather difficult situation awaits us in the near future. But we must understand that it will not be catastrophic,” he said.
Russian forces now have in their sights the strategic city of Chassiv Yar, perched on a height, less than 30 kilometers southeast of Kramatorsk, the main city in the region under Ukrainian control, which is an important railway hub and logistics for Ukrainians.
Summer offensive?
kyiv now fears an even larger Russian summer offensive.
At the end of March, the commander of the Ukrainian land forces Oleksandr Pavliuk deemed such a scenario involving 100,000 Russian soldiers “possible”.
As early as mid-April, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, General Oleksandr Syrsky, admitted that the situation on the eastern front had “significantly deteriorated”.
He said he saw a “significant intensification” of the Russian assault since March, resulting in “tactical successes”.
The great Ukrainian counter-offensive in the summer of 2023 came up against powerful Russian defense lines which exhausted the resources of the Ukrainian military, without allowing the regions occupied by Russia to be liberated.
Ukraine is now facing hesitation from its Western allies, even though American military aid of 61 billion, long blocked, was finally voted on Saturday by the American House of Representatives. The text must still be ratified by the Senate and then promulgated by President Joe Biden.
kyiv now hopes that aid from the United States can reach the front very quickly. The Kremlin, for its part, considers that it will change “nothing”.
As for the lack of soldiers, Volodymyr Zelensky promulgated a controversial law in mid-April supposed to facilitate enlistment.
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