Pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin mounted both on the battlefield and in the halls of world power, as Ukrainian troops waging a counteroffensive on Saturday pushed further into the country’s partially retaken northeast. At a high-level summit in Uzbekistan, Putin vowed to press ahead with his offensive in Ukraine despite recent military setbacks, but also had to address concerns about the protracted conflict expressed by India and China. “I know this time is not war,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the Russian leader in televised remarks as the two met Friday in Uzbekistan. At the same summit a day earlier, Putin acknowledged China’s unspecified “questions and concerns” about the war in Ukraine, while also thanking Chinese President Xi Jinping for his government’s “balanced position” on the conflict. The hasty withdrawal of his troops this month from parts of a northeastern region they seized early in the war, along with rare public reservations expressed by key allies, underscored the challenges Putin faces on all fronts. Both China and India maintain strong ties to Russia and have tried to remain neutral in Ukraine. Xi, in a statement released by his government, expressed his support for Russia’s “core interests” but also an interest in cooperation to “bring stability” to global affairs. Modi said he wanted to discuss “how we can move forward on the path of peace”. On the battlefield, Western defense officials and analysts said on Saturday that Russian forces were apparently setting up a new defense line in northeastern Ukraine after Kiev’s troops breached the previous one and tried to push their advance further east. Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in a daily intelligence briefing that the line is likely between the Oskil River and Svatove, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. The new line emerged after a Ukrainian counteroffensive punctured the previous line of war, allowing Kiev’s troops to retake large swathes of land in the northeastern Kharkiv region bordering Russia. After Russian troops retreated from the city of Izium, Ukrainian authorities discovered a mass grave site, one of the largest discovered so far. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that more than 440 graves had been found at the site, but that the number of victims was not yet known. Zelensky said the graves contained the bodies of hundreds of civilian adults and children, as well as soldiers, and some had been tortured, shot or killed by artillery shelling. He reported evidence of atrocities, including a body with a rope around its neck and broken arms. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces continue to cross the key Oskil River in the Kharkiv region as they try to press a counteroffensive targeting Russian-held territory, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War. The institute said in its report on Saturday that satellite images it reviewed suggested that Ukrainian forces had crossed over to the east bank of Oskil in Kupyansk, placing artillery there. The river, which flows south from Russia into Ukraine, has been a natural break in the emerging front lines since Ukraine began its push about a week ago. “Russian forces are likely too weak to prevent further Ukrainian advances along the entire Oskil River if Ukrainian forces choose to continue offensive operations,” the institute said. Videos released online on Saturday showed Ukrainian forces also continuing to seize land in the eastern region of the country. One video showed a Ukrainian soldier walking past a building, its roof damaged, then pointing over his shoulder at a colleague who was hoisting the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag atop a cell phone tower. The soldier in the video identified the seized village as Dibrova, just northeast of the city of Sloviansk and southeast of the embattled city of Liman in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Another online video showed two Ukrainian soldiers in what appeared to be a bell tower. A Ukrainian flag was hoisted as a soldier said they had captured the village of Shurove, northeast of Sloviansk. The Ukrainian army and the Russians did not immediately recognize the change of hands of the two villages. Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russian forces continued to pound towns and villages with rockets and shelling. A Russian missile attack early Saturday caused a fire in Kharkiv’s industrial district, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said. Firefighters extinguished the fire. Syniehubov said the missile debris suggested the Russians fired S-300 surface-to-air missiles at the city. The S-300 is designed to hit missiles or aircraft in the sky, not targets on the ground. Analysts say Russia’s use of the missiles for ground attacks suggests it may run out of some precision munitions as the months-long war continues. Bombing of the nearby town of Chuhuiv later on Saturday killed an 11-year-old girl, Syniehubov said. In the southern Zaporizhzhia region, much of which is occupied by Russians, one person was injured when Russian forces shelled the town of Orikhiv, Ukrainian Zaporizhzhia governor Oleksandr Starukh told Telegram. Starukh said Russian troops also shelled two villages in the area, destroying several civilian facilities there. The central region of Dnipropetrovsk also came under fire overnight, according to its governor, Valentin Reznichenko. “The enemy attacked six times and fired more than 90 deadly missiles at peaceful towns and villages,” Reznichenko said. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s atomic energy company Energoatom said a convoy of 25 trucks was bringing diesel fuel and other critical supplies to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — Europe’s largest, which was shut down a week ago amid fears that fighting may occur in the area in a radioactive disaster. The trucks were allowed through Russian checkpoints on Friday to deliver spare parts for repairs to damaged power lines, chemicals to run the plant and additional fuel for backup diesel generators, Energoatom said in a statement. The six-reactor plant was seized by Russian forces in March, but is still operated by Ukrainian engineers. Its last reactor was shut down on Sunday after repeated power outages due to bombings compromised critical security systems. The Russian military on Saturday blamed Ukraine for renewed artillery shelling of the power plant and its personnel repulsed the attack. Ukrainian authorities did not immediately look into the claim. In Russia, one person was killed and two others were injured Saturday as a result of Ukrainian shelling of a village, according to Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Russian border region of Belgorod. —— Karl Ritter in Kyiv contributed to this report.
