KHARKIV OBLAST, UKRAINE, May 1 — Over the past day, the Russian army hit Vesele, Vovchansk, Synkivka, Petropavlivka, Podoly, and Kharkiv in the Kharkiv region with airstrikes, according to the morning report of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In the Kupiansk direction, the Ukrainian military repelled six attacks near Berestove, east of Kopanka in the Kharkiv region and Stelmakhivka in the Luhansk region.

Russians are not abandoning their goal of occupying Kupiansk, a city in the Kharkiv region, again. It is a logistics and railway hub between Kharkiv and Luhansk oblasts, and seizing it would allow the Russian army to boost its supply efforts. 

On April 18, the General Staff reported that Russians renewed localized assaults on the Kupiansk axis after rotating units to compensate for significant losses. On April 24, Serhii Melnyk, head of the Kharkiv military garrison, said that the Russian troops resumed their attempts at an offensive on the Kupiansk axis but weren’t successful.

According to the General Staff’s data, in the Lyman direction, the Ukrainian Armed Forces repelled 21 Russian attacks in the areas of Novoiehorivka, Hrekivka, Makiivka, Nevske, and Serebrianske Forestry in the Luhansk region and Terny in the Donetsk region.

As General Staff informed, in the Slobozhanskyi direction, in the border areas, the Russian military conducts intense sabotage activities to prevent the deployment of Ukrainian troops to more dangerous directions and increases the density of minefields along the state border in the Belgorod Oblast.

Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, said during a telethon that the Russian army is building up troops in the north of the Kharkiv region according to a plan, but the pace of manpower and equipment buildup hasn’t changed for ten months. According to him, “it is too early to talk about opening a front in the north of Kharkiv region.”

He also noted that the Russian military resumed assault operations at the Kupiansk and Lyman directions, but Ukrainian defenders are holding back their attempts to advance.

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