In an effort to support the struggling nation of Ukraine in fending off Russia’s attack on Kharkiv, the United States will provide it with an additional $275 million in military aid, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced in a statement on Friday.
According to the State Department, the package contains precise aerial munitions, missiles, anti-armor systems, 155 mm and 105 mm artillery rounds, and HIMARS ammunition.
“Assistance from previous packages has already made it to the front lines, and we will move this new assistance as quickly as possible so the Ukrainian military can use it to defend their territory and protect the Ukrainian people,” the statement said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he visited Kharkiv earlier in the day and spoke with military leaders, heads of special services, and regional and local administrations in his nightly video message on Friday.
Zelenskyy reported that border territories in Kharkiv’s northern regions, which Russian troops had targeted earlier this month, were now under battle control of Ukrainian forces.
Viktor Vodolatsky, a deputy to the Russian State Duma, the country’s lower house of parliament, had different remarks from him. The Tass news agency quoted five kilometres inside the Ukrainian border, Vodolatsky as saying that Russian soldiers possessed control over more than half of the town of Vovchansk.
Vodolatsky was cited as stating that Russian forces would target Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, and Pokrovsk, three cities in the eastern Donetsk area of Ukraine, once Vovchansk was secured.
Reuters was not able to independently confirm reports from either side about the battlefield.
As part of a planned counteroffensive against eastern Ukraine, Russia struck trains, rails, and structures in the northeastern Kharkiv region of Ukraine.
Although local officials announced on Friday that they were evacuating children from the Kharkiv area, which has been bombarded by Russian forces, the national railway operator of Ukraine, Ukrzaliznytsia, stated that no injuries had been reported as a result of the Russian attacks on the train.
On Friday, Ukrainian officials declared that 123 orphans and children without parents residing in the area would have to leave over the next sixty days.
Since Russia launched an offensive in the Kharkiv region on May 10, more than 11,000 people have been evacuated, according to regional governor Oleh Syniehubov.
Russia’s offensive intends to start incursions in the northern districts of Sumy and Chernihiv as well as test Ukrainian defenses in the Kharkiv and Donetsk areas.
Ukraine’s already small military is being strained by Russia’s latest moves.
After more than two years of fighting in the region, the Ukrainian army is already outnumbered and outgunned; destroying the train network will only make matters worse.
Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, has declared his intention to establish a “buffer zone” around Kharkiv in order to stop cross-border attacks by Ukrainians.
According to Ukrainian sources, at least seven people were killed and at least 28 injured in Kharkiv on Thursday as a result of Russian assaults.
Zelenskyy described the incident as “extremely cruel” on Thursday. Additionally, he voiced his frustration at Kyiv’s Western friends for not providing Ukraine with enough air defence equipment to fend off such strikes.
Echoing Zelenskyy, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated that the attack demonstrated the critical necessity for more Patriot air defence systems built in the United States for Ukraine to defend its citizens from aerial bombardment.
“Unfortunately, mere words of solidarity do not intercept Russian missiles,” he wrote on the social media platform X.
On Telegram, Kharkiv region governor Syniehubov stated that at least fifteen Russian strikes had occurred in the region.
The region’s capital of the same name, Kharkiv, is home to about a million people and is roughly 19 kilometres from the Russian border.
Officials confirmed damage from Ukrainian aerial raids on Thursday in the Belgorod region of western Russia.
35 Ukrainian missiles and three aerial drones were destroyed above Belgorod, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, the regional governor of Belgorod, stated on Telegram that a structure in Belgorod city had been destroyed by Ukrainian attacks, which also caused a fire.
Gladkov also mentioned that two nearby communities’ numerous homes had sustained damage.
Situated near the border between Russia and Ukraine, Belgorod is frequently attacked by Ukrainian forces.
Later on Thursday, the leader of the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia has seized, announced that two bystanders had died as a result of a Ukrainian missile attack close to Simferopol, the region’s principal administrative hub.
According to media sources on Thursday, Zelenskyy is scheduled to attend the June summit of the leaders of the Group of Seven main industrialized nations to present a fresh request for further funding.
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