British intelligence confirmed that Ukrainian forces It approaches Kobyansk and threatens Russia’s supply routes to Donbass.
And earlier on Friday, the Russian army announced sending reinforcements towards Kharkiv in Ukraine in response to a breach by Ukrainian forces in this area on the border with Russia.
Kyiv announced Thursday that it had recaptured regarding 1,000 square kilometers in this region in northeastern Ukraine in recent days, especially the city of Balaklia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that Kyiv forces had recaptured 30 towns from Russian forces in the northeast of the country.
From Brussels, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Moscow’s deployment of reinforcements showed Russia was paying a “heavy price”.
Russian forces
On the European side, the 27 European Union finance ministers gave the green light Friday to provide new aid worth five billion euros to Ukraine in the form of a loan, in order to help it deal with the repercussions of the war.
On the other hand, United Nations investigators announced on Friday that they had documented more than 400 arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances by Russian forces in Ukraine, and dozens of similar cases by Ukrainian forces.
Despite the gains of Ukrainian forces, the governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleg Sengopov, urged residents who had left not to return due to an electricity and gas crisis in the towns recaptured from the Russians.
Photo showing broken windows in one of the buildings of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant – September 2, 2022 from Archyde.com
For its part, Russian media reported the deployment of reinforcements in this direction and broadcast videos showing armored vehicles, artillery and trucks traveling in large numbers on unspecified roads. Moscow did not comment on this deployment and, every day, contented itself with mentioning the heavy losses inflicted by the Russian army on the Ukrainian forces.
In evidence of Ukrainian progress, the pro-Russian authorities in the occupied territories announced, on Friday, the evacuation of residents to other areas under the control of Moscow or to Russia.
fierce battles
A senior official in the administration of Russian forces, Vitaly Ganchev, told “Russia 24” channel, Friday, that “fierce battles” are taking place around the city of Balaklia, which Kyiv said Thursday that it had retaken.
Kharkiv, the capital of the region of the same name and the second city in Ukraine, is located in the northeast of the country right on the border with Russia and has been resisting since the beginning of the invasion on February 24.
For its part, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported a “complete blackout” in the Ukrainian town of Energodar, where the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant is located, a situation that “affects the safety of operations”.
