KYIV (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday he had travelled to the frontline area of Vovchansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region near the Russian border, where Moscow’s forces have been trying to break through.
Russian troops opened a new front in the north of the region in May, rapidly making inroads up to 10 km (6 miles). Ukraine’s military later halted the offensive, one of the main thrusts of which had pushed towards the town of Vovchansk.
“Kharkiv front. The forward command post of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in the area of Vovchansk,” Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
He was shown presenting state awards to soldiers and shaking their hands in a video posted alongside the statement.
In video clips posted online, Zelenskiy later said authorities had already begun strengthening air defence systems in Kharkiv region, where frequent Russian air attacks have eased to some extent recently.
“In terms of security, and without going into too many details, we have already begun strengthening the airspace around Kharkiv,” Zelenskiy told enterpreneurs in neighbouring Poltava region.
Supplies of Western anti-aircraft systems have begun flowing faster into Ukraine after an interruption of U.S. supplies for months because of disagreements in the U.S. Congress.
Zelenskiy said such systems would be introduced more quickly “where the number of attacks is greater”.
The Ukrainian General Staff said Russia continued to conduct air strikes in the region’s border areas and that in the last 24 hours Kyiv’s forces had repelled six assaults near Vovchansk and the village of Hlyboke more than 30 km (19 miles) to the west.
Though Russia’s attacks in the eastern Donetsk region remain Moscow’s main offensive thrust, the assault into Kharkiv region has stretched Ukraine’s outmanned defenders and forced Kyiv to send in reinforcements.
Ukraine then successfully lobbied allies to allow it to use Western weapons for some strikes across the border from Kharkiv region. Kyiv says this has helped it to fend off advances by Russian forces, which are now more than 29 months into their full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Kyiv is now pressing its allies to lift restrictions preventing it from using Western weapons for strikes deep inside Russia on targets such as military airfields.
On his trip to the Kharkiv region, Zelenskiy also visited the town of Derhachi, about 15 km (nine miles) from the regional capital Kharkiv, his statement said. Both settlements have been frequently targeted by Russian missile and guided bomb attacks.
(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Gareth Jones, Ron Popeski and Chizu Nomiyama)
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