KYIV: Ukraine’s top commander warned on Friday of “heavy battles” looming on the war’s new front in the northeastern Kharkiv region as Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was carving out a “buffer zone” in the area.
Russian forces attacked the Kharkiv region’s north last Friday, making inroads of up to 10 kilometers (6 miles) and unbalancing Kyiv’s outnumbered troops who are trying to hold the line over a sprawling front nearly 27 months since the full-scale invasion.
Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi said the attack had expanded the area of hostilities by around 70km and that Russia had launched its incursion ahead of schedule when “it noticed the deployment of our forces.”
“We understand there will be heavy battles and that the enemy is preparing for that,” the head of the Ukrainian armed forces wrote in a statement on the Telegram app.
Speaking during a state visit to China, Putin said Moscow’s forces were creating a “buffer zone” to protect Russian border regions, but that capturing the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest, was not part of the current plan.
The Russian leader told a news conference the assault was a response to Kyiv’s shelling of Russian border regions such as Belgorod.
“Civilians are dying there. It’s obvious. They are shooting directly at the city center, at residential areas. And I said publicly that if this continues, we will be forced to create a security zone, a buffer zone. That is what we are doing,” Putin said.
Russian forces were able to advance 10 kilometers in one place, but Ukrainian forces have “stabilized” the front, President Volodymyr Zelensky told Ukrainian media outlets in comments published on Friday.

HEAVIEST ASSAULTS IN EAST
Moscow’s forces are mounting their heaviest assaults in the eastern Donetsk region, according to data compiled by the Ukrainian General Staff, which said the eastern Pokrovsk front had faced the most regular assaults in recent days.
In his comments, Syrskyi said Ukrainian forces were preparing their defensive lines for a possible new Russian assault on the Sumy region, which would mark another front more than a hundred kilometers to the north of Kharkiv.
Kyiv has warned that Russia has small units of forces near the Sumy region.
Volodymyr Artiukh, head of the Sumy region’s military administration, said Russian military activity along the northern Ukrainian region was at a high level.
“We note that the actions (of Russian forces) are systematic. Shelling continues, in fact, along the entire border, with an intensity of 200-400 explosions per day... The intensity of enemy sabotage groups has increased,” he said.

London: Most British voters support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and ending arms sales to Israel for the duration of the conflict, according to a new poll.

Commissioned by the Council for Arab-British Understanding and Medical Aid for Palestinians, the YouGov survey reinforces the results of polls conducted earlier in the year.

It found that 55 percent of voters support ending arms sales to Israel for as long as the war in Gaza continues, and 73 percent support an immediate ceasefire.

Among people who voted for the governing Conservative Party in 2019, 40 percent support the suspension of arms sales, with 24 percent opposed.

Among Labour Party voters, 74 percent support an arms sales suspension, with 7 percent opposed.

Only 13 percent of all respondents want a continuation of arms sales to Israel.

“Seven months of Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment and siege have wrought the worst humanitarian crisis ever seen in Gaza,” said Rohan Talbot, MAP’s director of advocacy and campaigns.

“In recent days, Israeli forces’ escalating attacks on Rafah and the north have further displaced hundreds of thousands more people, many of them for the second or third time, and pushed humanitarian operations to the brink of total collapse.

“The feeling among the British public reaffirms the demands of humanitarians: UK leaders must do more to end the killing in Gaza, including halting arms sales so they cannot be used in further violations of international law.”

The statement for a ceasefire in Gaza is supported by 67 percent of Conservative voters and 86 percent of Labour voters.

Just 8 percent of all respondents said there should not be a ceasefire.

Both the government and opposition recorded low public approval in the YouGov poll. Only 18 percent of respondents approve of the government’s response to the war, while just 12 percent agree with the Labour response.

“What this and earlier polls continue to demonstrate is that the government and the Labour leadership continue to lag sluggishly behind British public opinion by failing to take the decisive actions needed to help bring the horrors we see in Gaza to a swift end — a trend also highlighted in polls across Europe,” said Chris Doyle, CAABU’s director.

“There is little confidence in the leadership of both the main parties in the handling of this major international crisis.”