Zelensky visits troops on front line in Kharkiv region

KYIV • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited troops on the front line in Ukraine's north-eastern Kharkiv region yesterday, his first official appearance outside the Kyiv region since the start of Russia's invasion on Feb 24.

Mr Zelensky's office posted a video on Telegram of him wearing a bulletproof vest and being shown heavily destroyed buildings in Kharkiv - Ukraine's second-largest city - and its surroundings.

"You risk your lives for us all and for our country," the President's office website cited him as telling the soldiers, adding that he handed out commendations and gifts.

The post also said: "2,229 buildings have been destroyed in Kharkiv and the region. We will restore, rebuild and bring back life. In Kharkiv and all other towns and villages where evil came."

In the video, Ukrainian soldiers showed Mr Zelensky destroyed trucks on the side of a road going through a field.

"In this war, the occupiers are trying to squeeze out at least some result," Mr Zelensky said in a later post. "But they should have understood long ago that we will defend our land to the last man. They have no chance. We will fight and we will definitely win."

He also met local officials - the governor of Kharkiv region and the mayor of the city - to discuss reconstruction programmes for the region.

He called on them to "find cool projects" to rebuild destroyed areas. "This is a chance for such districts to have a new face," he said.

Mr Zelensky's chief of staff, Mr Andriy Yermak, wrote on the Telegram app that 31 per cent of the Kharkiv region's territory was currently occupied by Russia, and a further 5 per cent had been taken back by Ukraine after having been occupied earlier.

Hours after Mr Zelensky's visit, several explosions were heard in Kharkiv, a Reuters journalist said. A large plume of dark smoke could be seen rising north-east of the city centre.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces endured heavy artillery barrages yesterday as they held off Russian attempts to capture Sievierodonetsk, the largest city Kyiv still controls in the Luhansk region of the Donbas, Ukrainian officials said.

The shelling was so intense it was not possible to assess casualties and damage, Luhansk governor Serhiy Gaidai said. Dozens of buildings have been destroyed in the past few days. "The situation has extremely escalated," he said.

The Ukrainian government meanwhile urged the West to provide it with more longer-range weapons in order to turn the tide in the war, now in its fourth month.

The battle for Sievierodonetsk, which lies on the eastern side of the Siverskyi Donets River, is in the spotlight as Russia ekes out slow but solid gains in the Donbas, comprising the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

Having failed to take the capital Kyiv in the early phase of the war, Russia is seeking to consolidate its grip on the Donbas, large parts of which are already controlled by Moscow-backed separatists.

It has concentrated huge firepower on a small area - a contrast to earlier phases of the conflict when its forces were often spread thinly - bludgeoning towns and cities with artillery and air strikes.

Mr Gaidai said Russian forces had dug in at the Myr hotel on Sievierodonetsk's northern edge. "They cannot advance further into the city and are taking casualties, but we are not able right now to push them out of the hotel," he said on Telegram.

Analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said the Russians had still not managed to encircle the city and the Ukrainian defenders have inflicted "fearful casualties" on them. But the Ukrainians were also taking serious losses themselves, civilians as well as combatants, they said in a briefing paper.

Russia's fixation on Sievierodonetsk had drawn resources from other battlefronts, and as result, they had made little progress elsewhere.

"The Russian invasion of Ukraine that aimed to seize and occupy the entire country has become a desperate and bloody offensive to capture a single city in the east while defending important but limited gains in the south and east," the analysts said.

Earlier, Mr Zelensky voiced hopes that Ukraine's allies would provide much-needed weapons and said he expected "good news" in the coming days.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE