Soldiers from Ukraine putting up fierce battle with the Russian army – Zelenskyy

Ukraine’s soldiers are fighting hard against the Russian army near the border, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The death toll from a building collapse in Russia, caused by Ukrainian shelling, has now risen to 15.

Zelenskyy said that there are very intense fights happening near the border in eastern and northeastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian soldiers are fighting hard against the much stronger Russian ground offensive.

“Hard fights are happening on a big part of our border,” Zelenskyy said in his video message on Sunday night.

Ukraine’s military leaders said on Sunday that Russian soldiers attacked 22 times in two areas of the Kharkiv region in the past day and had some success in their operations. They did not give more details about the attacks.

The Kremlin’s forces want to take advantage of Ukraine’s weaknesses before they receive a lot of new military help from the US and Europe. Analysts say this will happen in the next few weeks and months. They say this is a good chance for Moscow and a scary time for Kyiv in the two-year war.

Russian forces are making new advances into the northeastern Kharkiv region and eastern Donetsk region after the front line had not moved much for months, which is about 1,000 kilometers long. Both sides have been using long-range attacks in a war where they are trying to wear each other down.

The Kharkiv invasion might be a way to make a safe area to protect Belgorod, a Russian region near the border that is often attacked by Ukraine. This is embarrassing for the Kremlin. In March, Russia said it would take about 9,000 kids out of Belgorod because the area was being bombed a lot.

Russian firefighters and rescue teams completed the clean-up after a part of a residential building collapsed in Belgorod, Russia. The collapse was believed to be caused by shelling from Ukraine.

Fifteen people were found dead in the wreckage, according to Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Belgorod region. Twenty-seven others were injured.

He said that three more people in Belgorod city were killed by shelling on Sunday night.

Yevgeny Poddubny, a military reporter for Russia’s state TV company VGTRK, said on Telegram that the attack on Kharkiv was the start of a new phase.

“We’re making the enemy go away from the border and getting rid of them so the Kyiv government can’t use cheap rockets to attack Belgorod,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin changed the defense minister in his government on Sunday. Shoigu was an important person in Putin’s choice to send Russian soldiers to Ukraine in February 2022. Russia thought they would defeat Ukraine’s army easily and be welcomed by the Ukrainian people.

Zelenskyy said the fighting in Donetsk is just as intense as in Kharkiv. He said the Kremlin wants to weaken us by starting a new fight in Kharkiv.

He said that the area near Pokrovsk region in Donetsk, just inside the Ukraine border, is very challenging.

Before the war, Pokrovsk was a town with about 60,000 people. It used to take two hours to drive from the front line to Pokrovsk. Now it is less than a half of that amount.

In February, taking over Avdiivka allowed the Kremlin’s troops to move further into Donetsk. In 2022, Russia took control of Donetsk and three other regions, which was not allowed, after invading Ukraine. The Kremlin wants to have full control of Donetsk as part of their main war goals.

Even though Ukraine was ready for a Russian attack in the Kharkiv region, they were too slow to build defenses in some areas. Ukrainian soldiers have criticized their leaders for this.