Russia's Bid To Capture Kharkiv A 'Failure': Zelensky

Volodymyr Zelensky has said Russian forces are changing their focus on the front line in Ukraine following the "failure" to capture Kharkiv.

In May, Russia launched an offensive in the northeast of Kharkiv Oblast near the border. While they made incremental gains, the push was widely seen to have run out of steam and came at a high cost in troops and equipment.

However, the offensive did stretch Ukraine's defenses and Russia captured villages in Donetsk Oblast and pushed toward Chasiv Yar. But in an interview with French media, the Ukrainian president said that Russian forces had now shifted their sights toward another part of Donetsk—the city of Pokrovsk, 175 miles south of Kharkiv.

"The entire eastern front is challenging," he said, according to a translation carried by Ukrainian media. "The main objective today, after their failure to capture Kharkiv, which we understand is no longer feasible, has shifted."

"I would say that today Pokrovsk is their priority," Zelensky said. "The Pokrovsk front and the city of Pokrovsk are their main targets."

Last week, Ukraine's military said that fighting in the direction of Pokrovsk was "tense and difficult," where Russian forces were trying to break through. On Thursday, Ukraine's armed forces said that one third of combat engagements with Russian forces took place in the Pokrovsk sector in the last day.

Over the last week, Moscow said it controlled four villages east of Pokrovsk although Ukraine has not commented on those claims. "The largest concentration of personnel, weapons, and all their available resources are now focused on the Pokrovsk front," Zelensky added.

Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment by email.

Zelensky also said that Russia was targeting Toresk, an hour away to the northeast of Pokrovsk and "have plans for Sloviansk, just north of Kramatorsk, but these are just plans." Russian soldiers have reached the edge of Toretsk, where the regional governor said a week ago that only one tenth of the prewar population remained.

Elsewhere in the interview, the Ukrainian president said that territorial concessions to end the war started by Vladimir Putin would require the backing of a referendum in Ukraine but this is "not the best option."

"Ukraine will never give up its territories because this would be an attack on the Constitution," he said.

"The possibility of a referendum, as stipulated by the Ukrainian Constitution, has always been present," Viktor Kovalenko, geopolitical analyst and former Ukrainian soldier told Newsweek. "Yet, Zelensky had previously refrained from raising this option, hoping to reclaim the territories through military victory or to compel Russian withdrawal."

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