Battles rage in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region as Kyiv investigates attacks on civilians

KYIV – Ukrainian prosecutors said they were investigating attacks on civilians in two cities in the north-eastern region of Kharkiv, and President Volodymyr Zelensky reported successes by troops fighting a fresh Russian assault there on May 18.

Mr Zelensky said in his nightly video address that Ukrainian forces had grown in confidence, particularly in the Kharkiv region.

However, Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces captured the village of Starytsia in the Kharkiv region on May 18, eight days after a new Russian push in the area began.

“The occupier is losing its infantry and equipment, a tangible loss, even though, just as in 2022, it was counting on a quick advance on our land,” Mr Zelensky said, referring to Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in February that year.

In the eastern Donetsk region around Chasiv Yar, a city seen as a key target in Russia’s campaign, Mr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces had repelled a Russian assault. “Our soldiers destroyed more than 20 units of the occupier’s armoured vehicles,” he said.

Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield accounts.

Ukrainian prosecutors said they were investigating an air strike on a residential area of the regional capital Kharkiv in which five people were wounded, including a 13-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy.

In the city of Vovchansk, just 5km from the Russian border, the regional prosecutor said Russian shelling killed a 60-year-old woman and injured three other civilians. A 59-year-man was also injured in the village of Ukrainske, prosecutors said.

In the village of Stanislav in the southern region of Kherson, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said a Russian drone strike killed a man born in 1984 and injured a woman.

Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians, but thousands have been killed and injured since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. REUTERS