Journalists note that Russian shelling of Kharkov has intensified significantly; the occupiers are trying to destroy the entire energy infrastructure of the city.
Intense attacks by the Russian Armed Forces on Kharkov are a way to force the local population to evacuate, since now the Kremlin does not have the necessary forces to attack the city with the aim of occupying it. Bloomberg writes about this.
The article’s authors, citing unidentified officials in Kyiv and Western countries, argue that Moscow’s latest moves to destroy energy facilities look more like a planned effort to create conditions to make Kharkov uninhabitable.
At the same time, the invaders decided to take advantage of the moment when the Ukrainian army announced a lack of artillery ammunition and air defense missiles.
At the same time, the material indicates that the Russians recently tried to spread false information about “the evacuation of Kharkov residents due to the possible encirclement of the city,” which led to the spread of panic. The article also mentions a statement by Energy Minister German Galushchenko, according to which “almost all” local electricity generation was destroyed during Russian strikes, which is why “winter will be a challenge for us.”
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The publication’s sources note that the administration of US President Joe Biden discussed a way to help Kharkov resolve energy supply issues.
However, almost no one predicts that Kremlin forces will be able to capture the city in the near future, the article says. According to President Vladimir Zelensky’s entourage, the Russians do not have sufficient resources to carry out a serious offensive, and therefore the occupiers are trying to create a feeling of panic. At the same time, officials in the United States and other Western countries agree that Moscow cannot now begin to attack Kharkov without a significant reinforcement of Russian troops, the authors of the article are convinced.
On April 4, military expert Igor Romanenko said that Russian President Vladimir Putin considered Kharkov a sacred and maximally Russian-speaking city, but he was unable to conquer it either during the first attempt at aggression or during the second.
Also on April 16, the representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense Andrei Yusov said that the Russians are now not able to launch an attack on Kharkov, but they have sufficient reserves of S-300 systems for further attacks on the city.
