Russia massively attacks Kharkov, Ukraine faces 'critical' situation

After starting his early morning shift in a snow-covered forest near the Russian border, Grandpa, a soldier in a Ukrainian air defense unit, said he saw a flash of light and heard a deafening explosion. It was a ballistic missile launched from Russian territory, but Granpa’s unit had no time to intercept it and had no weapons in its arsenal that could do it.

Armored vehicles destroyed in conflict in Ukraine. (Photo: Reuters)

Russia massively attacked Kharkov

Seconds later, the missile crashed into Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, flattening a building and destroying infrastructure. “I knew the missile was going to fall, but there was nothing I could do to stop it,” Granpa said.

Russia has recently carried out frequent attacks on the city of Kharkov, 46km south of the border. Whenever an attack occurs, air raid sirens sound throughout the city.

Ukraine said Russia used a variety of weapons, including the S-300 air defense system, from deep inside its territory to target Kharkiv, as part of a strategy to exploit weaknesses in Ukraine's defenses.

In addition, Moscow also carried out combined attacks on the capital Kiev and the region southeast of the Dnipro River.

The repeated missile attacks show that Russia is ready to take all measures to overwhelm Ukraine on the battlefield. In addition, this also exposes Kiev's weakness in having insufficient air defense systems, even though the West has provided the country with a series of systems such as NASAMS, Iris-T, Gepard and Stinger.

For Russia, Kharkov is one of the easiest targets to attack. The city is close to the Russian border, so even modern air defense systems such as the US-made Patriot that Ukraine is using will have difficulty intercepting high-speed missiles traveling on a ballistic trajectory because the time from launch to landing of the missile is less than 1 minute.

Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at CNA, a nonprofit research and analysis organization based in Virginia, called Kharkiv an “anchor” that still holds the eastern front. In targeting Kharkiv, Moscow could be looking to the city’s predominantly Russian-speaking population.

Grandpa is part of the 113th Territorial Defense Brigade, tasked with defending the airspace north of Kharkiv. His unit relies heavily on Soviet-era ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft artillery systems, which they captured on the battlefield after Russia withdrew from the nearby city of Kupyansk in September 2022.

This is a mobile system mounted on the back of a truck, and can only attack targets moving below the speed of sound, such as the drones used by Russia like the Iranian-made Shahed or the first-person view (FPV) UAV.

Russia often uses these types of UAVs to attack Ukrainian troops stationed north of the city or target the city center - which is still under Ukrainian control.

Ukraine faces a "precarious" situation

Russia has recently been keeping a special eye on the city of Kharkiv and its surrounding area – which it had overlooked during Ukraine’s lightning counteroffensive in September 2022.

Makhno, 38, commander of Ukraine's air defense unit, said that over the past month, more and more groups of decoys - from five to 20 Russian soldiers at a time - have crossed the border into Ukraine to surprise their positions.

Russian forces have also attacked the city several times while reinforcing their military positions from other angles, including the eastern Kupyansk region. In the past four weeks alone, missile strikes in Kharkiv have damaged much of the infrastructure.

At a military post between Kharkiv and the border, soldiers from a Ukrainian air defense unit dressed in camouflage gear blend into the snow as they prepare to respond to potential Russian attacks.

“The situation is very tense,” said a soldier who gave his name as Makhno. Meanwhile, the West’s delay in supplying ammunition and military hardware to Ukraine has left his unit in a difficult position. “They are wasting time wondering whether to supply more weapons to Ukraine. In fact, we need to be two steps ahead of the enemy.”

Another soldier, who goes by the nickname Strilok, said that as the rockets headed toward the city, “we felt helpless.” The best way to stop the attacks would be to use the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), which would attack launch sites in Russia. But Washington has prevented Ukraine from using them to attack targets in Russia—something Strilok called “absurd.”

Hong Anh/VOV.VN (Synthesis)

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