General Staff: Russian military hits 6 towns and villages in Kharkiv Oblast with airstrikes

KHARKIV OBLAST, UKRAINE, Apr 30 — Over the past day, the Russian army hit Lyptsi, Vesele, Neskuchne, Mala Vovcha, Borova, 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, Ukrainian troops repelled nine attacks near Berestove and Novoserhiivka in the Kharkiv Oblast and Stelmakhivka in the Luhansk Oblast.

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 4, Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Syniehubov said the fighting paused on the axis because Russians were rotating their units to compensate for significant losses.

Later, on April 18, the General Staff reported that Russians renewed localized assaults on the Kupiansk axis. 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 13 Russian aircraft-backed attacks near the settlements of Tverdokhlibove, Nevske, and Serebrianske Forestry in the Luhansk region; Terny, Torske, and south of Zarichne 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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• Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reviewed the process of building defensive structures and fortifications near the border with Russia in Kharkiv Oblast, the presidential press service reported.