Kyiv: It now seems that the Russian forces have given up on Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv and retreated after weeks of bombardment and now a failed effort to encircle it.
Ukraine’s general staff said that the Russians were pulling back from Kharkiv; instead, Russian forces will now focus on launching mortar, artillery, and airstrikes in the eastern Donetsk province to “deplete Ukrainian forces and destroy fortifications.” Kyiv is now saying that Moscow’s forces are now focused on increasing the attacks on Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland.
As the reports suggest that Russian forces have lost to gaining control of Kharkiv, many experts now believe that Ukraine has now almost won the war. The Institute for the Study of war, a Washinton-based think tank, said that Ukraine “appears to have won the Battle of Kharkiv” and that “Ukrainian forces prevented Russian troops from encircling, let alone seizing Kharkiv, and then expelled them from around the city.”
This means that the Ukrainian artillery can now threaten the town of Vovchansk, which is a key highway and rail line supplying Russian forces in Donbas.