Ukraine said it carried out a counter-attack on Russian forces to disrupt its supply lines in the Donbass region, while Ukrainian forces continue to cleanse towns north of Kharkiv, according to a report in a newspaper. The Wall Street Journal.
As arms from Western countries continued to flow into Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said Kyiv was switching from defense to offensive to retake large parts of southern and eastern Ukraine, still under Russian rule.
“There is a strategic collapse in favor of Ukraine, this process will take time. In the long term, Russia’s defeat is inevitable,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said.
The Wall Street Journal report indicated that as the war entered its 80th day, Russian offensive operations were at a standstill in the Donbass after Russian forces failed to cross the Seversky Donets River.
With Russia’s failure to occupy the capital, Kyiv, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his forces in late March to withdraw from northern Ukraine and focus on occupying the entire Donetsk and Luhansk regions that make up the Donbass region.
The report pointed out that Russia has established a headquarters for its military operations in the town of Izum, which is located on the Seversky Donets River in the Kharkiv region, while the head of the Kharkiv Military Administration, Oleh Sinihopov, said Saturday that Ukrainian forces began to advance successfully.
“The road to Izum remains the hottest area. This is where our armed forces started a counterattack. The enemy is retreating in several directions and this is a natural result thanks to our armed forces,” Sinihopov added.
With the month-long Russian offensive in the Donbass, the results are still limited. Despite daring attempts to cross the Seversky Donets River and encircle the Severodonetsk region before the Victory Day celebrations in Russia, the matter turned into a disaster for the Russian forces, and slowed the momentum of their movements in the Donbass, according to the newspaper.
And on Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned his Finnish counterpart in a phone call against joining NATO, noting that ending the decades-old policy of non-alignment would be a mistake for Helsinki.
Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö explained to his counterpart Putin that the invasion of Ukraine had changed the security environment, which prompted them to seek NATO membership in the coming days.
For his part, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grosko said that Moscow would take “appropriate precautionary measures” if NATO were to deploy weapons and forces near its borders in Finland.