Russian bombing of Kharkiv.. and air alert in six Ukrainian provinces

Two local officials announced that at least four people were injured on Sunday Russian bombing of a district of Kharkivthe largest city in eastern Ukraine, while the official Ukrainian source for alerting citizens announced an air alert in six Ukrainian provinces.

According to the statement, sirens sounded in Kiev, Kievsky, Poltava, Sumy, Kharkov, Cherkasy and Chernihiv provinces.

In parallel, Kharkiv Governor Oleh Sinhopov said on Telegram that four people were injured and a fire broke out due to the shelling, adding that paramedics had taken three men wounded by shrapnel to a hospital and treated the other on the spot.

The Mayor of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekhov, said that seven people were wounded in the bombing, which targeted the Osnoviansky district, located in the south of the city.

Ukraine regained control of much of the eastern city of Kharkiv in September, while Russian forces now occupy a small strip of land there.

Fighting rages east

Ukraine announced Sunday that the fighting had “intensified” on the eastern front, while Russian President Vladimir Putin considered that the counterattack launched by the Ukrainian army nearly a month ago “did not succeed.”

“The situation has somewhat intensified in the east,” said Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hana Malyar.

“For two days, the enemy launched massive attacks in the Kobyansk sector of the Kharkiv region. We are on the defensive,” she added.

Last month, Ukraine launched a counterattack after stockpiling Western weapons and boosting its offensive forces.

However, Kiev acknowledged the difficulty of the battles it was engaged in, and called on the United States and other allies to provide it with more long-range weapons and artillery.

However, Malyar noted that Ukrainian forces are “gradually advancing” near Bakhmut, which was home to approximately 70,000 people before the war and which Russian forces captured last May after what was considered the longest and bloodiest battle of the war.

Ukrainian “progress”.

On Friday, Ukraine said that, during the past week, its forces advanced about two kilometers around the city of Melitopol (south), which was occupied by Russian forces shortly after the start of the war in Ukraine.

In a televised interview broadcast Sunday by Russia’s “Russia 1” TV channel, Putin considered that the Ukrainian army had not made any progress in its counterattack.