Defending in Its North, Ukraine Faces Pressure All Along Front Line

Ukrainian forces said on Thursday that they were slowing the pace of an offensive push by Russia in their country’s northeast, even as they struggled to contain new Russian assaults at several other locations on the front line, with Moscow seeking to stretch Kyiv’s troops to break through their defenses.

The Ukrainian military reported late Wednesday that it had repelled four ground attacks in the northeastern Kharkiv region, where Russian forces surged across the border last week and quickly captured a dozen or so villages and about 50 square miles of territory.

“Over the course of the day, our Defense and Security Forces of Ukraine — all units involved — have managed to partially stabilize the situation,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address on Wednesday evening. “Our attention is constantly focused on the front line, on all combat zones.”

Ukrainian civilians who were evacuated on Thursday said that Russian forces had been fighting in small units that slip through the forest and into villages. They have popped up unexpectedly on streets in the town of Vovchansk, a village a dozen miles to the east of Kharkiv city that is now contested between the two armies.

Oleksiy Kharkivskiy, a police officer evacuating civilians, said the northern parts of Vovchansk were now in the sights of Russian tanks, but not fully controlled by the Russian army, the same state of affairs as several days ago, suggesting that the fighting has slowed in and around the village, though artillery barrages are frequent.

Still, more Russian assaults were reported elsewhere, both to the east of the Kharkiv region and further to the south in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions. “We clearly see how the occupier is trying to distract our forces and make our combat work less concentrated,” Mr. Zelensky said.