Ukrainians Fleeing Russia's Kharkiv Offensive Fear Occupation Once Again

Residents fleeing a Ukrainian town under constant Russian bombardment fear that their town will be seized by Moscow for a second time in two years, a humanitarian group helping evacuees has told Newsweek.

The Kharkiv regional town of Vovchansk was seized by Moscow on the first day of Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, but was retaken by Ukrainian forces following a successful counteroffensive in September, later that year.

But Russia's renewed offensive on the area launched on May 10 once again threatens the border town, 40 miles northeast of Kharkiv city, which NGO Rescue Now has said faces rocket attacks every two minutes.

"People are terrified because the circumstances are not predictable at all, it is the second time the people of Vovchansk are at risk of occupation," Aliona Udalova, a Kharkiv native and Rescue Now project manager, told Newsweek. "They are terrified of the possibility of being occupied again."

Udalova's group delivers aid and helps get people to safety from Vovchansk, which had a prewar population of 17,000, most of whom have now fled. The group also helps those in the city of Derhachi, just north of Kharkiv city, as well as other villages where constant shelling means evacuating residents is fraught with risk.

"The problem is not only with military operations there but also because of the missile and rocket attacks—a lot of people in Vovchansk and the wider region have no access to electricity and internet," she said.

"Emergency brigades are just coming to the addresses to the people in Vovchansk and suggesting they evacuate to Kharkiv city or to other places."

Rescue Now helps organize camps which help children, some of whom have been orphaned. "A lot of children in this war are losing their parents and they do not know how to cope with this tragedy," Udalova said, "Children are not coping and they need help."

A Ukrainian sergeant told the Wall Street Journal that Russian forces control the northern half of Vovchansk, although the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said Friday there is no confirmation that Moscow had seized all of the town north of the Vovcha River.

Putin wants to create a "buffer zone" to protect border areas from Ukrainian strikes, according to the ISW which noted how the Russian president said his forces had no immediate plans to seize the city of Kharkiv.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told AFP on Friday that the situation in the northeast of Kharkiv was "controlled" but not stabilized but it could be the first wave in a wider offensive by Russia in which its forces will go "deeper into our territory."

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