2024-04-18 12:56:13
Ukraine’s second largest city is a tempting target for Russian aggressors, and Kiev knows it. According to the Newsweek server, more and more people are asking whether the Ukrainians will be able to defend Kharkiv, which has almost two million inhabitants, from an invasion if the Russians decide to conquer it.
Footage from Kharkiv shows destroyed houses and broken windows | Video: Reuters
Kharkiv is only 34 kilometers from the Russian border and the enemy has been shelling it continuously for the last few weeks in an attempt to destroy mainly its energy infrastructure and force the residents to leave. “Kharkov is one of the main Ukrainian cities, so it has a great symbolic meaning. We will do everything to prevent the Russians from entering and taking control of it,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the German newspaper Bild at the beginning of April.
But the Ukrainians are running out of ammunition and the Russian invaders are moving forward slowly, at the cost of huge human losses. “Even with the cessation of Western aid, a successful attack on Kharkiv would be a big blow to Russia, but it’s not completely out of the question,” Jacob Parakilas, senior researcher for defense strategy at the RAND think tank, told Newsweek.
Given the short distance of Kharkov from the Russian border, a slow and crushing attack could mean, according to Parakilas, that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s troops would be able to take control of the city within months. “Kharkov’s location is important to Moscow so that its troops can be deployed better and it can support them well,” adds Parakilas.
The analyst also draws attention to the emptying of Ukrainian arms and ammunition warehouses. As Ukrainians look ahead to a summer Russian offensive, key $60 billion in aid from the United States is still being held up in Congress by Donald Trump’s Republican supporters.
“If we will be able to defend Kharkiv without US military assistance? Yes, we will,” is convinced Colonel Andriy Zadubinny of the Khortytsia troop group, which operates in northeastern Ukraine. According to him, tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, who are now trying to hold back the larger and more equipped Russian army, will pay for it with their lives. “Without American help, we will have a hard time. But we have no choice. We have to fight to the death,” added Zadubinny.
A hypothetical attack on Kharkiv has its pitfalls. “Although the Kremlin has the initiative on the battlefield, as it constantly sacrifices large numbers of its own soldiers, it faces problems in implementing effective tactics using combined arms,” thinks Sil Parakilas from the RAND think tank, who also adds that such Russians, unlike Ukrainians, can afford losses.
It is also not entirely clear whether Moscow will favor Kharkiv and withdraw its forces from the fighting in the Donetsk region. According to the Newsweek website, Western experts are skeptical that the Russians would be able to maintain the pace of their operations in the east and at the same time exert pressure in the north near Kharkiv.
“The main efforts of the Russian killers are concentrated in Donbass. However, we cannot rule out any possibilities,” Zadubinnyi thinks. For him, the most important thing now is to protect the sky above Kharkiv, thus creating an effective air defense against devastating shelling from an aggressive neighbor.
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Spotlight Aktuálně.cz – Petr Boháček | Video: The Spotlight Team