VILCHA, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday proposed dismissing Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu from his post.
Putin nominated First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov for the role. His nomination must now be approved by Russian lawmakers.
The move comes weeks after Timur Ivanov, Russia’s deputy defense minister in charge of military construction projects, was jailed pending an investigation and trial on corruption charges.
In accordance with Russian law, the entire Russian cabinet resigned on Tuesday as Putin began his fifth presidential term in a glittering inauguration at the Kremlin.
THIS IS A LATEST UPDATE. The following is the previous AP story.
Thousands more civilians have fled new Russian crisis ground offensive in the northeast of Ukraine which has targeted towns and villages with a barrage of artillery and mortar fire, officials said Sunday.
Intense fighting forced at least one Ukrainian unit to withdraw Kharkiv regioncapitulating more land to Russian forces in less defended settlements in the so-called disputed gray zone along the Russian border.
On Sunday afternoon, the city of Vovchansk, one of the largest in the northeast with a pre-war population of 17,000, became the focal point of the battle.
Volodymyr Tymoshko, Kharkiv regional police chief, said Russian forces were on the outskirts of the city and approaching from three directions.
“Infantry fighting is already taking place,” he said.
A Russian tank was spotted along a main road leading into the city, Tymoshko said, illustrating Moscow’s confidence in deploying heavy weapons.
An Associated Press team, positioned in a nearby village, saw plumes of smoke rising from the town as Russian forces launched shells. Evacuation crews worked non-stop throughout the day to remove residents, most of whom were elderly, from danger.
At least 4,000 civilians have fled the Kharkiv region since Friday, when Moscow’s forces launched the operation, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said in a statement posted on social media. Heavy fighting raged Sunday along the northeastern front line, where Russian forces attacked 27 settlements in the past 24 hours, it said.
Analysts say Russian push aims to exploit ammunition shortage before Western supplies promised can reach the front line.
Ukrainian soldiers said the Kremlin was using the usual Russian tactic of launching a disproportionate amount of shooting and infantry assaults to wear down its troops and firepower. By intensifying fighting in what was previously a static part of the front line, Russian forces threaten to pin down Ukrainian forces in the northeast, while carrying out intense fighting further south, where Moscow is also gaining ground. .
This comes after Russia stepped up attacks in March targeting energy infrastructure and settlements, in what analysts predicted was a concerted effort to shape the conditions for an offensive.
In the meantime, a partially collapsed 10-story building in the Russian town of Belgorod near the border, killing at least eight people and injuring 20 others. Russian authorities said the building collapsed following Ukrainian bombing. Ukraine has not commented on the incident.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said stopping the Russian offensive in the northeast was a priority and that kyiv’s troops were continuing counter-offensive operations in seven villages around the Kharkiv region.
“Disrupting Russian offensive intentions is now our number one task. Our success in this task depends on every soldier, every sergeant, every officer,” Zelenskyy said.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that its forces had captured four villages on the border of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, in addition to five villages would have been seized on Saturday. These areas were likely poorly fortified due to dynamic fighting and intense, constant bombardment, facilitating the Russian advance.
Ukrainian leaders have not confirmed Moscow’s achievements. But Tymoshko said that Strilecha, Pylna and Borsivika were under Russian occupation and it was from their side that they were bringing in infantry to stage attacks on other besieged villages of Hlyboke and Lukiantsi.
Russian tactics in Vovchansk mirror those used in the battles of Bakhmut and Avdiivka in the Donetsk region, he explained, in which heavy air attacks were accompanied by massive infantry attacks.
“Now the Russians are simply wiping Vovchansk off the face of the earth and advancing by the scorched earth method. That is, first they burn a specific area, then the infantry comes, and they always advance in this way,” he said.
A Ukrainian unit said it had been forced to retreat in some areas and that Russian forces had captured at least one more village on Saturday evening.
In a video Saturday evening, the Hostri Kartuzy unit, part of the Ukrainian National Guard’s special forces detachment, said it was fighting for control of the village of Hlyboke.
“Today, during heavy fighting, our defenders were forced to retreat from a few more positions, and today another settlement came completely under Russian control. At 8:00 p.m., the fighting for the village of Hlyboke continues,” the fighters said in the video.
The Institute for the Study of War said on Saturday that it believed claims that Moscow had captured Strilecha, Pylna, Pletenivka and Borsivika were accurate, and that geotagged images also appeared to show that Russian forces had captured Morokhovets and Oliinykove. The Washington-based think tank called recent Russian advances “tactically significant.”
At the start of the war, Russia unsuccessfully attempted to quickly storm Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, but withdrew from its outskirts after about a month. In the fall of 2022, seven months later, the Ukrainian army drove them out of Kharkiv. THE bold counterattack helped persuade Western countries that Ukraine could defeat Russia on the battlefield and deserved military support.
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Samya Kullab reported from Kyiv.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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