A senior Kyiv official on Thursday, May 5, claimed defenders have pushed Russian Federation (RF) forces out of the effective artillery range of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and for more than two months a preferred target for Kremlin howitzer, rocket artillery, and aerial bomb attacks.
Presidential Advisor Oleskiy Arestovych in a May 5 interview aired on the News24 television program said Ukraine Armed Forces (UAF) advancing north from Kharkiv liberated the town of Russka Lozova, forcing the last RF units able to hit Kharkiv with conventional artillery to retreat. RF-controlled information sites on May 5 either were silent on the development or said that fighting in Russka Lozova was in progress.
A May 5 statement from the Kharkiv region office of Ukraine’s Ministry of Emergency Situations said that 55 artillery strikes hit Kharkiv northern suburbs over the night Wednesday-Thursday, setting five major fires, but that by morning RF firing had stopped and the blazes were either out or under control.
Oleh Sinehubov, head of the Kharkiv regional defense command, in a Telegram statement, said that a single RF long-range rocket struck a factory in an industrial region in the north of the city, killing one.
Kremlin forces began bombarding Kharkiv on the first day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, on Feb. 24, initially targeting military infrastructure, but quickly changing tactics and concentrating instead on civilian homes and businesses. Since then at least 300 Kharkiv residents have died and at least 600 have been injured in bombardments and air attacks on the city, lasting more than two months, a late April Kharkiv city government statement said.
Claims of fresh UAF advances to the northeast of Kharkiv, a center of Ukrainian research and industry, were paralleled by multiple reports of UAF units pushing as many as 30 kilometers east from the city, reaching the strategically important Siviersky Donets River, and possibly threatening RF supply lines to Russia. UAF statements on 4 May said Ukrainian forces in the sector were progressing eastward with some success, and a social media post from the 92nd Mechanized Brigade profiled the raising of a Ukrainian flag over the formerly RF-controlled village of Molodova, on the right/west bank of the Siviersky Donets River.
The Kremlin-controlled Readkova Telegram channel confirmed UAF advances east of Kharkiv towards the Siversky Donets and said that the UAF offensive poses the threat of a “breakthrough” to the towns Volchansk and Kupiansk. Both locations are on a railroad line heavily used by RF troops for supply in the region. Kupiansk is, reportedly, the terminus of RF military rail supply and a major logistical center.
Fighting also was reported in the vicinity of the town Izium, near the UAF-held towns of Barvenkovo and Lyman, and the UAF-held villages Kurulki-Pashkovo and Velkika Kamyshevakha, as well as around the town Lyman, further east. RF-controlled media claimed RF troops made progress at Lyman. The 0600 May 5 situation report from Ukraine’s Army General Staff (AGS) said UAF forces held at all locations, using artillery and missiles to inflict sometimes serious casualties. The Izium-Lyman sector has been the focus of a major but slow-moving RF offensive kicked off in late April to capture the major objective cities Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. For more than a week RF advances have slowed to a crawl, reportedly in part due to difficult wooded or swampy terrain, and in part because of tough UAF defenses along the Siviersky Donets River line.
Both sides reported continued static fighting around Severodonetsk, by most accounts another key objective for the RF’s Donbas offensive. The heavily fought-over town Popasna, officials said, again saw street battles. Serhiy Haidai, head of the Luhansk regional defense command, in a May 5 statement said as much as 80 percent of all buildings and infrastructure in Popasna is destroyed.
Over the past 24 hours, the AGS estimated, UAF units repelled 11 RF assaults, destroying five tanks, seven infantry fighting vehicles, five trucks, two observation drones, and two Su-30 fighter jets. Military analysts have questioned whether the RF can sustain its Donbas offensive long-term due to mounting RF losses and heavy weapon reinforcements sent by NATO nations to Ukraine, and now beginning to reach UAF units in the region. RF officials have vowed the offensive will go on at least until Kremlin forces capture Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson regions in their entirety.
