Facing Russian advance, a top Ukrainian general paints a bleak picture
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s military is confronting a “critical” situation in the country’s northeast, facing troop shortages as it tries to repel a Russian offensive that has been advancing for several days, a top Ukrainian general said Monday.
Russian troops surged across the border last week to open a new line of attack near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city after Kyiv, capturing at least nine settlements and villages and forcing thousands of civilians to flee.
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“The situation is on the edge,” Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, said in a video call from a bunker in Kharkiv. “Every hour this situation moves toward critical.”
His bleak assessment echoed those of other Ukrainian officers in recent days that the country’s military prospects were dimming. In addition to being outnumbered, the Ukrainians face critical shortages of weapons, especially artillery ammunition, and $60.8 billion worth of arms from the United States — approved three weeks ago after months of congressional gridlock — has barely begun to arrive.
Like most Ukrainian officials and military experts, Budanov said he believes the Russian attacks in the northeast are intended to stretch Ukraine’s already thin reserves of soldiers and divert them from fighting elsewhere.
That is exactly what is happening now, he acknowledged. He said the Ukrainian army was trying to redirect troops from other front-line areas to shore up its defenses in the northeast but that it had been difficult to find the personnel.
Budanov assessed that Ukrainian forces would be able to shore up their lines and stabilize the front within the next few days. But he expects Russia to launch a new attack farther north of Kharkiv, in the Sumy region.
Fighting Monday was raging on the outskirts of Vovchansk, a small town about 5 miles from the Ukrainian-Russian border, northeast of Kharkiv. Russian airstrikes were pounding the town, according to Denys Yaroslavsky, a senior lieutenant commanding a unit currently fighting there.
Russian forces have so far managed to push about 5 miles into Ukrainian territory and seize some 50 square miles of land, according to online maps of the battlefield posted by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.
In a possible sign of Ukraine’s difficulties on the battlefield, the Ukrainian commander responsible for the northeast front was dismissed and replaced Monday, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
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