More than 4,000 people were evacuated from the border areas of the Kharkiv region, in northeastern Ukraine, in the face of Moscow’s offensive, the local governor said this Sunday, May 12. The day before, Russian forces claimed the capture of five villages in the region.
Information to remember
⇒ More than 4,000 people evacuated in the Kharkiv region
⇒ Fire at Volgograd refinery after Ukrainian drone attack
⇒ Presidential election in Lithuania against a backdrop of “Russian threat”
More than 4,000 people evacuated in the Kharkiv region
More than 4,000 people have been evacuated from border areas in the Kharkiv region in northeastern Ukraine, the local governor said on Sunday, following a Russian offensive that began on Friday. “A total of 4,073 people were evacuated,” the governor, Oleg Synegubov, wrote on social media. The day before, Russian forces claimed the capture of five villages in the region.
Oleg Synegubov also said a 63-year-old man was killed by artillery fire in the village of Glyboke, and another 38-year-old was injured in Vovchansk, a border town with a population of around 3,000. before the current offensive.
On Friday (May 10), Ukraine said Russia had launched an attack in the Kharkiv region, making small advances in a border area from which it had been pushed back almost two years ago. President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a speech Saturday evening that Ukrainian troops had carried out counterattacks in border villages in the Kharkiv region.
Fire at Volgograd refinery after Ukrainian drone attack
A Ukrainian drone attack caused a fire on the site of the Volgograd refinery in southern Russia during the night from Saturday to Sunday, lamented the governor of the eponymous region, Andreï Botcharov. “On the night of May 12, air defense and electronic warfare forces repelled a drone attack on the territory of the Volgograd region,” he first reported on Telegram. “The consequences of the fall of a drone followed by a detonation caused a fire at the site of the Volgograd oil refinery,” he added.
The official said that “the fire has since been extinguished”, and “there are no victims”. The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, claimed in its morning report to have intercepted a total of eight Ukrainian drones during the night, including one “over the territory of the Volgograd region”. The Russian army, however, did not provide further details on this device and the consequences caused by its fall.
Presidential election in Lithuania against a backdrop of “Russian threat”
Lithuanians vote this Sunday in the first round of the presidential election after a campaign dominated by defense issues, with Vilnius seeking to strengthen its security against neighboring Russia. The Baltic country of 2.8 million inhabitants, a former Soviet republic which borders the highly militarized Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, fears it will be the next target if Moscow were to win its war against Ukraine. “Lithuania’s understanding of the Russian threat is unanimous and indisputable, and the main candidates agree on it,” summarizes Linas Kojala, director of the Center for Eastern European Studies in Vilnius.
Polls give the outgoing president, Gitanas Nauseda, a 59-year-old former banker, a comfortable lead over the seven other candidates, including Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte and a well-known lawyer, Ignas Vegele.