The eyes of the world have been riveted on Ukraine since the Russian invasion ordered on Thursday February 24 by Vladimir Putin. Since then, his army has been advancing little by little in the country and attacking sometimes strategic cities for the rest of the fighting, while it faces a Ukrainian resistance determined to defend its country.
Several Ukrainian cities, little known to the general public until now, have made a resounding entry onto the international scene by suffering military attacks from the Russian army, like Kharkiv or Kherson, taken in the night from Wednesday to Thursday.
These strategic cities in Ukraine
The Express
- A large Russian-speaking population in Kharkiv
On Wednesday morning, residents of Kharkiv witnessed the arrival by air of Russian troops who “attacked a local hospital”, according to the Ukrainian armed forces. At least 4 people were killed and 9 were injured in shelling targeting the security services headquarters and a university – 21 were reported dead in attacks the previous day. Among the victims: a Ukrainian member of the local mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), who died on Tuesday during the bombings, the international body announced on Wednesday evening.
At least 25 civilians have been killed since the start of the Russian offensive in this Russian-speaking city of 1.4 million inhabitants, located very close to Russia, 30 kilometers from the border. Economic and industrial capital of Ukraine throughout the Soviet period, Kharkiv is the second largest city in the country after the capital, Kiev.
This city is of major interest to Moscow. “Important roads leave from Kharkiv towards Kiev and their control would allow logistical support for the Russian forces which surround the Ukrainian capital”, pointed out in an article in L’Express, General Dominique Trinquand, military expert and former chief of the French mission to the UN. “Furthermore, it would allow Russian troops to fall back to the south of the country and isolate Ukrainian forces fighting in Donbass further east.”
In Kharkiv there is also a large Russian-speaking population. The city almost became a pro-Russian separatist republic – like the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk today, explains International mail. In 2014, the self-proclaimed pro-Russian People’s Republic of Kharkiv finally collapsed when Ukrainian special forces regained control of the regional palace. Today, locals reject the Russian invasion, despite the strong ties between the two countries.
In The worldSergei Anatolyevich, the leader of the opposition Platform-For Life party in the Kharkiv regional council, although Russophile, thus protests against “the Russian military aggression which put an end to [des] once friendly relations.” “For me, this whole story is not just about Putin and the Kremlin. We are different from the Russians”, summarizes Igor Luganski, 58-year-old resident, with the Hungarian site TelexQuoted by International mail.
Demonstrations against the Russian invasion took place in this city in early February. In the crowd: a large banner “Kharkiv is Ukraine”. “In 2014, the question arose: should we shoot the Russians? The question no longer arises. The Russians did not ask themselves any questions, a demonstrator told AFP. The situation has changed, we have an army worthy of the name, we have citizens ready to defend the country.”
- Kherson, a strategic city on the Sea of Azov
Another strategic city: Kherson, fallen to the arms of the Russian army. Ukrainian officials confirmed, overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, the presence of Russian forces in this large city in the south of the country. Moscow had meanwhile already announced the conquest of Kherson on Wednesday morning, after fierce fighting. The head of the regional administration, Gennadi Lakhouta, called on Telegram residents to stay at home, indicating that “the occupants [russes] are in all parts of the city and are very dangerous”.
“It was the most material objective, the most materialized for Putin, explains to France Info General Jean-Paul Paloméros, former Commander of NATO in charge of the transformation of military capabilities and former Chief of Staff of the Air Force. It was, in a way, to finish the work started in 2014. We wondered if it was going to push towards Mariupol and a little further west. This is the case now.” Kherson seems to be a kind of additional stage to control the surroundings of the Sea of Azov, after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. It is also mainly in this city that the residents of annexed Crimea took refuge.
According to a census of the Ukrainian authorities dating from 2001, the oblast (“administrative entity”) of Kherson, the population is Ukrainian at more than 80%; the Russians represent 14% of the inhabitants.
- Lviv, a transit city for refugees
It is in Lviv, in Galicia, that thousands of Ukrainians have traveled in the past seven days to flee the fighting. Only 70 kilometers from Poland, the city serves as a crossing point to join the European Union. Boarding trains, filled with civilians, is one of the only solutions that still exist to leave Ukrainian territory.
It also serves as a hub for humanitarian distribution across the country. “On Wednesday, for example, we sent about fifty buses [remplis d’aide]. On Wednesday we also sent 40 tons of humanitarian cargo to Odessa [au sud du pays] and about 10 tons, if I remember correctly, in Kherson and Kiev,” Yuriy Vyzniak, director of the Palace of Arts, which has become the headquarters for humanitarian aid, told AFP. It is also in this city, the largest in the western part of Ukraine, that the various Western embassies, in particular that of France, will be transferred to flee the Russian offensive.Up to now, they were located in the capital, Kiev.
Lviv, with its strong identity, claims to be the cultural capital of the country. Overwhelmed in December 2004 by the Orange Revolution, she was also one of the first to refuse Viktor Yanukovych’s victory. Sometimes Polish or Austro-Hungarian, then annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939, Galicia feels European: after ousting Yanukovych in 2014, the inhabitants thus exhibited the starred flags of the European Union.
Other Ukrainian cities have caught the eye of the international community since the start of the offensive, such as Berdiansk, another key Ukrainian port on the shores of the Sea of Azov, which the Russian army seized.
Russian forces are also attacking the port of Mariupol (southeast), the capture of which would allow Russia to ensure territorial continuity between its forces from Crimea and those from the separatist territories of Donbass, further north. The mayor accused Russia of wanting to besiege the city. “They destroyed the bridges, destroyed the trains to prevent us from leaving our women, children and old people (…) They seek to impose a blockade, as in Leningrad”, the current Saint-Peterburg, victim of a siege drama of the German army during the Second World War, declared Vadym Boïtchenko on Telegram.
Bombings also hit the city of Zhitomir, 150 kilometers west of Kiev. At least three people were killed there, according to residents.