Russia does not have sufficient forces to achieve a major breakthrough in its ongoing offensive in Ukraine, a senior NATO military official said on Thursday, May 16. “The Russians do not have the forces necessary to achieve a strategic breakthrough, and more precisely, they have neither the skills nor the capacity to do so,” said the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (Saceur), the American general Christopher Cavoli, during a press conference in Brussels, where NATO is headquartered.
Ukraine said this Thursday that it was slowing down the Russian military advance in the north-east of the country, but the situation there remains “extremely difficult” according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, with Moscow leading an offensive there which has enabled it to gain its most significant territorial gains since the end of 2022.
The Ukrainian authorities have also accused the Russian army of having executed at least one Ukrainian civilian and of using around forty others as “human shields” in Vovchansk, a town in the Kharkiv region (north-east) and target of an assault by Russian troops who conquered, according to AFP estimates, nearly 260 km2 in one week.
President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to Kharkiv, the regional capital and the country’s second city, on Thursday for a meeting of his military cabinet. “To date, the situation […] is generally under control, our soldiers are inflicting significant losses on the occupier,” declared Volodymyr Zelensky. “But the area remains extremely difficult, which is why we are strengthening our units,” he added.
Regional Governor Oleg Synegubov said that the “enemy” was still advancing in the area of the locality of Lyptsi and that the Russians were continuing to try “to take Vovchansk.” “We cannot say that our soldiers have managed to stabilize the front line,” he admitted while estimating that the “active” phase of the opposing advance “has been stopped”. In the morning, the army said it had managed to “partially stabilize the situation” and stop Russian advances in “certain” sectors.
“Human shield”
Interior Minister Igor Klymenko accused Russia of having carried out arbitrary detentions of civilians and at least one summary execution in Vovchansk, a town of 18,000 inhabitants before the war.
Later in the day, police in the region clarified the accusations, saying the Russian army was detaining 35 to 40 civilians, using them as “human shields” to protect a military headquarters. An elderly resident who tried to escape on foot into territory controlled by Ukraine was killed by a gunshot to the head, according to the same source.
AFP is unable to confirm these accusations from an independent source. Russia did not immediately react. Russian forces have been accused of numerous documented abuses in Ukraine, in particular the massacre of hundreds of civilians in Bucha, a suburb of kyiv that they occupied at the start of their invasion in 2022.