Ukraine pushes Russian forces out of Kharkiv, US analysts say

Ukrainian troops defending the city of Kharkiv have reached the state border with Russia, the regional governor said on Monday.

Governor Oleh Sinegubov made the claims on the Telegram messaging service.

Although the claims have not been independently verified, the Ukrainian defence ministry published a video purportedly showing a number of soldiers from a territorial defence brigade at an unspecified location on the frontier.

“We have arrived, we are here,” one of the soldiers says.

Ukraine has been driving Russian forces away from Kharkiv, the second-largest Ukrainian city.

The BBC’s frontline correspondent reported that the continuing offensive could signal a shift in the war’s momentum and jeopardise Russia’s main advance further south.

A month ago, the Russian forces were at the gates to Kharkiv, with constant shelling and hours of explosions.

But now the  number of Russian artillery strikes has fallen from dozens daily, to only a handful.

Western officials also said Ukraine had driven Russian forces back from around Kharkiv, which was a key target for Moscow’s troops.

The US-based think tank Institute for the Study of War agreed with the assessment.

“Russian units have generally not attempted to hold ground against counterattacking Ukrainian forces over the past several days, with a few exceptions,” it said.

“Ukraine thus appears to have won the Battle of Kharkiv. Ukrainian forces prevented Russian troops from encircling, let alone seizing Kharkiv, and then expelled them from around the city, as they did to Russian forces attempting to seize Kyiv.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the development in his daily video address. “The gradual liberation of the Kharkiv region proves that we will not leave anyone to the enemy,” he said.

Kharkiv, near the Russian border and only 80km (50 miles) southwest of the Russian city of Belgorod, has undergone weeks of intense shelling. The largely Russian-speaking city with a prewar population of 1.4 million was a key military objective earlier in the war, when Moscow hoped to capture and hold major cities.