With All Eyes on Kharkiv, Ukraine's Military Intel Chief Warns A New Russian Offensive Is Brewing Farther North

'Every hour this situation moves toward critical,' Gen. Kyrylo Budanov said

As all eyes are focused on Russia's aggressive push into the Khakiv region, Ukraine's military intelligence chief, currently bunkered inside the city, is warning that another Russian offensive on a different front is imminent.

Russia is expected to launch an attack on the northeastern Ukrainian border region of Sumy after forcing nearly 6,000 people from their homes in the nearby Kharkiv region, as Ukraine's military struggles with shortages of troops, weapons and ammunition.

"The situation is on the edge," Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's military intelligence agency, told the New York Times on Monday. "Every hour this situation moves toward critical."

Budanov said Russia's Friday morning cross-border assault, which led to the capture of at least nine villages and settlements, left him hard-pressed to call in reinforcements because all available troops were either in Kharkiv or the city of Chasiv Yar in the Bakhmut region to the south.

"I've used everything we have. Unfortunately, we don't have anyone else in the reserve," Budanov said during a video call from a bunker in Kharkiv.

Budanov said Ukraine would likely be able to stabilize the front in Kharkiv in a few days, after which he anticipated a new Russia offensive against Sumy, about 90 miles to the northeast.

On Tuesday, Budanov said in televised remarks that "a rapid trend towards a stabilization of the situation had emerged -- that is, the enemy is, in principle, already blocked at the lines that it was able to reach," Reuters reported.

The situation is unfolding as Ukraine awaits $60.8 billion worth of American arms that recently started trickling in after the House of Representatives approved the military aid on April 21 following months of delays.

What's happening in Kharkiv?

At least 5,900 people have been evacuated from the border areas around the city of Kharkiv, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov told reporters on Monday, according to the Kyiv Independent.

Only about 200 people remained in the town of Vovchansk, with urban combat continuing in its northern outskirts, Syniehubov said.

Vochansk, about five miles from the Russian border, had a population of 17,000 before Russia invaded Ukraine in Feburary 2022 and occupied it, but the town was retaken by Ukraine during a September 2022 counteroffensive.

Denys Yaroslavsky, a senior lieutenant in charge of a Ukrainian unit in Vovchansk, told the Times on Monday that Russian airstrikes were pounding the town.

"They're dropping five to seven bombs every three minutes," Yarsoslavsky said by phone Monday morning.

Hryhoriy Shcherban, a volunteer helping to evacuate the town, said he'd received more than 200 requests for assistance overnight.

"We are driving around trying to find the addresses. Russia is shelling the evacuation road," he told the Times. "You can hear explosions all the time."

Despite the intense combat, a top Ukrainian official told told AFP that the city of Kharkiv, Russia's second-largest after the capital of Kyiv, remained secure, according to the Kyiv Post.

"We can say that we don't see any threat of assault on the city of Kharkiv," said Oleksandr Lytvynenko, the recently appointed secretary of Ukraine's Security Council.

What's happening in Sumy?

Ukraine began beefing up Sumy's border last month after Russian intensified its near daily shelling and raids against the region, the Kyiv Independent reported at the time.

"Saboteur groups shoot at anything they see," Yevhen Tkachenko, an officer with the 129th Territorial Defense Brigade said.

A military commander said the plan involved planting landmines and building fortifications to prevent Russian forces from crossing without suffering heavy casualties.

In March, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pledged $520 million to install three lines of defense along 1,240 miles of the border with Russia, with the lion's share of $38 million earmarked for Sumy.

The following month, the Kyiv Independent reported seeing anti-tank concrete pyramids known as "dragon's teeth," ditches, trenches, dugouts with reinforced structures, firing positions and corrugated steel shelters along what it was told was Sumy's third line.

On Tuesday, Budanov, Ukraine's military intelligence chief, warned that Russia had small groups of forces gathered around its town of Sudzha, across the border from Sumy.

"As for the Sumy region, the Russians actually planned an operation in the Sumy region from the very beginning...but the situation did not allow them to take active actions and start the operation," he said.

What is the U.S. doing?

During an unannounced visit to Kyiv on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said some of the American military aid had already arrived and more was "now on the way," the Associated Press reported.

"We know this is a challenging time," Blinken said after meeting with Zelenskyy.

But Blinken added that American arms were is "going to make a real difference against the ongoing Russian aggression on the battlefield."

"The United States is determined, determined to help Ukraine succeed, succeed both in the battlefield victory but also succeed, as we would say, in winning the peace and building the strongest possible Ukraine," he said.

President Joe Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan also said the administration was "trying to really accelerate the tempo" of weapons shipments, AP said.

Blinken was scheduled to deliver a speech later Tuesday to tout Ukraine's "strategic successes" against Russia.

During a speech last year in Helsinki, Finland, Blinken blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin for starting the war, calling it a "strategic failure" that left Russia "significantly worse off today than it was before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine -- militarily, economically, geopolitically."

Tags
Ukraine, Russia, War, Border
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