Russia says it has taken full control of Luhansk’s Bilohorivka in eastern Ukraine

MOSCOW – The Russian military said on May 20 it had taken full control of the settlement of Bilohorivka in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region and had taken up better positions in the area.

The Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement its forces had also been involved in

fierce clashes in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region

near Vovchansk, Starytsia and Hlyboke where it said they had repelled two counter-attacks.

Its forces earlier in May thrust into the Kharkiv region in what Russian President Vladimir Putin said was an operation to create a buffer zone to protect Russia’s border regions.

Ukraine’s officials said its troops still control about 60 per cent of Vovchansk and are fighting house-to-house to defend the border town in the north-eastern Kharkiv region from Russian attacks, in their most detailed public assessment of the battle to date.

Capturing Vovchansk would be Moscow’s most significant gain since it opened a new front in the northern part of Kharkiv region earlier in May, stretching Kyiv’s forces in the third year of the full-scale invasion.

“The enemy continues to try, especially inside Vovchansk, to push the Ukrainian armed forces out of the town,” Kharkiv region’s deputy governor Roman Semenukha said on Ukrainian national television on May 20.

“About 60 per cent of the town is controlled by the Ukrainian armed forces, meaning that the assaults do not stop,” he added.

The region’s governor, Mr Oleh Syniehubov, said the front line now runs along the Vovcha River, which cuts through the town.

“Our soldiers are trying to defend the town, house by house, street by street,” Mr Syniehubov said.

“The enemy’s plan to quickly capture the north of the region failed,” he said on Ukrainian national television.

Vovchansk’s police chief said earlier in May that Russian forces had taken positions in the town and called the situation “extremely difficult”.

Russia’s push in the Kharkiv region with assaults in the areas of Vovchansk and Lyptsi forced Ukraine to send in reinforcements – stretching its troops along the more than 1,000km front line in the east and south.

Ukraine had earlier said its forces had repelled Russian attacks near Starytsia, a village about 5km from the border with Russia, as some of Kyiv’s units worked to strengthen defensive positions in the area on May 20.

Mr Semenukha said the local authorities had evacuated around 10,500 people from the border areas since May 10, when Russia launched the assault on the Kharkiv region. REUTERS