The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, will visit Finland and Sweden on Wednesday as they consider whether to apply for Nato membership
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Ukraine earlier announced its forces have recaptured villages from Russian troops north and north-east of Kharkiv, pressing a counter-offensive that could signal a shift in the war’s momentum and jeopardise Russia’s main advance.
Tetiana Apatchenko, press officer for the 92nd Separate Mechanised Brigade, the main Ukrainian force in the area, in the country’s east, confirmed that Ukrainian troops had in recent days recaptured the settlements of Cherkaski Tyshky, Ruski Tyshki, Borshchova and Slobozhanske, in a pocket north of Kharkiv.
The military operations of the Ukrainian armed forces around Kharkiv, especially north and north-east of Kharkiv, are sort of a success story. The Ukrainian army was able to push these war criminals to a line beyond the reach of their artillery.”
The Armed Forces of our state provided us all with good news from the Kharkiv region. The occupiers are gradually being pushed away from Kharkiv.
I am grateful to all our defenders who are holding the line and demonstrating truly superhuman strength to drive out the army of invaders. Once the second most powerful army in the world.
They’re trying to cut in and behind the Russians to cut off the supply lines, because that’s really one of their (the Russians’) main weaknesses.
Ukrainians are getting close to the Russian border. So all the gains that the Russians made in the early days in the noerth-east of Ukraine are increasingly slipping away,” said Neil Melvin of the RUSI thinktank in London.