Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that Russia has moved its focus away from Kharkiv and to the eastern front, with fighting intensifying near the city of Pokrovsk.
In an interview with French media, Zelenskyy said Russian forces are now “throwing everything they have” at Pokrovsk.
“The main objective today, after their failure to capture Kharkiv, which we understand is no longer feasible, has shifted,” said Zelenskyy, according to a translation by Ukrainian outlet Pravda.
“Their primary focus is no longer the entire east, though Sloviansk is not excluded,” he added, referring to a city in northern Donetsk that borders the Kharkiv region.
His claim points to an end to Mocow’s May push to break through defensive lines in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s northeasternmost region on Russia’s border.
The Kremlin has denied that its offensive had failed.
“This operation is ongoing, it will continue until it has been successfully completed,” said Dmitry Peskov, its spokesperson, on July 17.
Its surprise assault reopened the war’s northeastern front, with an estimated 30,000 Russian troops seizing several villages and threatening Kharkiv city, the second-largest in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s rush to counter the incursion appeared messy, with some commanders saying the region was missing defensive positions that should have already been prepared before.
Kyiv also told its allies that it had watched Russian troops massing at the border but could do nothing since it was restricted from firing into Russian territory with Western-made weapons. Some of those limits have since been removed, allowing Ukraine to strike deeper behind Russian lines.
Still, the Russian advance failed to achieve significant gains, and Moscow’s control of Kharkiv is limited to small areas of the region. Russia’s goal was reportedly to create a buffer zone to protect its border city of Belgorod, though this backfired when the West removed its restrictions on its weaponry.
Zelenskyy said in early June that Russia had “failed to implement its Kharkiv operation.”
As he spoke to French reporters on Wednesday, he said that Moscow is now “concentrating the largest number of personnel, the largest number of weapons and KAB bombs” on Pokrovsk, per a translation from the Kyiv Independent.
In an update on July 24, Ukrainian forces near the city described the fighting as “tense and difficult.”
The Russian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.
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