Defense Ministry: Russian troops hit Ukrainian army positions in Kharkiv

Moscow says Russian troops have hit positions held by Ukrainian forces in the Kharkiv region, hours after Ukrainians claimed to have made substantial progress there.

In a statement released on Sunday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces were hitting Ukrainian army positions in the region with precision strikes, adding that the strikes were carried out by airborne troops, missiles and artillery.

President Volodymir Zelensky of Ukraine claimed on Saturday that his country’s army had reclaimed about 2,000 kilometers of territory from Russian forces in Kharkiv.

However, Russian Defense Ministry announced the same day that it was withdrawing troops from two areas of the northeastern region. the ministry added that its forces there were just going through a "redeployment" process.

“In order to achieve the goals of the special military operation, a decision was made to regroup troops in the areas of Balakleya and Izyum in order to build up efforts in the Donetsk direction,” the Russian military said in a statement.

Russia commenced the “special military operation” in the ex-Soviet republic on February 24, saying the operation was aimed at “demilitarizing” the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, which is made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk self-proclaimed republics.

Back in 2014, the two republics broke away from Ukraine, refusing to recognize a Western-backed Ukrainian government there that had overthrown a democratically-elected Russia-friendly administration.

MG