Fighting continues across the front lines despite Putin’s truce. Ukraine regains positions in Kharkiv region, enters Tyotkino in Kursk. Chinese soldiers to march alongside Russian troops on Moscow’s Red Square during the May 9 parade.
Fighting continues across front lines despite Putin’s truce
Despite Putin’s unilateral ceasefire around the Victory Day celebration, Russian forces continue assaults and attacks in a number of sectors along the front line in the regions of Donetsk, Kharkiv and Dnipro, spokesperson for the Khortytsia operational-strategic group of forces, Major Viktor Trehubov said on national television on Thursday.
“The enemy is less active. In some areas, there were no clashes in the morning, but there were intense battles in a number of other areas, so we cannot talk about a ceasefire,” Trehubov said.
“After midnight when the ceasefire they announced allegedly [began], [Russian troops launched] assault operations in the Lyman direction, in the Vovchansk direction, including in the city of Vovchansk, in the town of Chasiv Yar in the Kramatorsk direction, in the cities of Toretsk and Shcherbynivka in the Toretsk direction, and tried to advance along an entire front line in the Pokrovsk direction. The same is true for the Novopavlivka direction. They announced a ceasefire, but it’s not felt on the front, neither is it in the rear,” Trehubov said.
Some of the most intense battles are being fought in the Pokrovsk direction, he added. Ukrainian troops are engaged in defensive battles there. Russian forces are trying to conduct offensive operations to the west of Pokrovsk, to the east of the city along the Pokrovsk-Kostyantynivka highway, and south of the city in support of their efforts in the Novopavlivka direction.
“Sixty-five combat engagements — that’s not as many as there were in some past days, but it is now a section of the front with the most intense battles. The Russians do not stop trying to improve their tactical positions around the city by either crossing the Pokrovsk-Kostyantynivka highway in order to complicate logistics between the cities, or advance to the road to Pavlohrad, or somehow help the units that are trying to get to the border of the region of Dnipro in the Novopavlivka direction. As of now, they fail. They will not succeed in achieving that by May 9 as they planned either,” Trehubov said.
Ukraine’s Air Force said there had been no Russian missile or drone attacks in its airspace on Thursday morning. Yet Russia intensified attacks by tactical aircraft with the use of glide bombs on Sumy region, it added. One person was killed and another two wounded in glide bomb attacks on Sumy region overnight on Thursday.
Ukraine regains positions in Kharkiv region, enters Tyotkino in Kursk
Ukrainian troops recaptured lost positions near the village of Lyptsi in Kharkiv region, DeepState, a Ukrainian OSINT project said Thursday.
National Guard’s 13th Khartia Brigade confirmed the gains.
Khartia said Thursday it had completed a major operation to recapture a forested area north of Lyptsi in cooperation with other branches of the Ukrainian military.
They have deoccupied more than two million square meters (more than 200 hectares) of land there, it said.
Ukraine’s offensive operation began in November 2024 and lasted more than five months.
“Thanks to well-coordinated work of the units, [Ukrainian troops] have managed to push the enemy further away from Kharkiv and reinstate control over a piece of land that has important natural and tactical meaning,” Khartia said.
Throughout the operation, Russia lost nearly 1,500 soldiers killed or wounded, more than 200 pieces of weapons and 175 vehicles.
Khartia said its units and those of the 92nd Ivan Sirko Separate Assault Brigade are to be credited for breaking through Russian defenses and gaining a foothold there in the initial stages of the operation.
Ukrainian forces likely recently advanced across the international border into southern Tyotkino, Kursk Oblast, amid continued limited Ukrainian attacks in the area, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said Wednesday. The paragraphs below are quoted from the report.
Geolocated footage published on May 6 shows Russian forces conducting an airstrike against a building in southern Tyotkino (southwest of Glushkovo), indicating that Ukrainian forces likely seized positions in Tyotkino.
Russian milbloggers claimed on May 6 that Ukrainian forces seized up to two streets in southern Tyotkino and continued to claim on May 7 that Ukrainian forces maintain positions within the settlement. Some Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces pushed Ukrainian forces out of Tetkino, however. ISW has not observed geolocated footage indicating that Ukrainian forces have been pushed back.
Ukraine has not confirmed an offensive on the area around Tyotkino, in Kursk region.
Chinese soldiers to march alongside Russian troops on Moscow’s Red Square during parade
Chinese soldiers will march alongside Russian forces on Moscow’s Red Square during the Victory Day military parade on Friday, Russian leader Vladimir Putin said in opening remarks after greeting China’s Xi Jinping in the Russian capital on Thursday.
China has sent 102 soldiers –- the largest foreign military contingent among the 13 participating nations –- for the event.
“Together with our Chinese friends, we firmly stand guard over historical truth, protect the memory of the events of the war years, and counteract modern manifestations of neo-Nazism and militarism,” Putin said.
Russia began its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022 with the aim to “demilitarize and denazify Ukraine.”
A new term — Ruscism — emerged after Russia’s war crimes in occupied areas and other atrocities came to light.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyi has condemned the May 9 Victory Day celebrations planned for Moscow’s Red Square as a “parade of fear.” In a video address on Thursday when Ukraine marks the Day of Remembrance and Victory over Nazism in the Second World War, Zelenskyi compared events in Kyiv with “the columns of tanks and marching blocks of killers” on display in Moscow.
Last month, Ukrainian troops took two Chinese soldiers prisoner. China has denied official military involvement in Ukraine. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian responded to a request from an Ukrinform correspondent in China, who sought comment on the appeal by the captured Chinese citizens, asking their country’s leadership to repatriate them. Lin stated that Chinese government agencies were still in the process of verifying the information about the Chinese nationals captured during the war in Ukraine and were clarifying all the related circumstances.
