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.

“The situation in the Kharkiv region is generally under control,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media on Thursday after holding a meeting in Kharkiv with Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky and military commanders of the northern and eastern regions. “But the direction remains extremely difficult — we are strengthening our units,” Mr. Zelensky added.

Earlier, in his Wednesday evening address to Ukrainians, Mr. Zelensky described the situation as tense in all directions. “Our attention is constantly focused on the front line, on all combat zones,” he said.

Ukrainian civilians who were evacuated on Thursday said that Russian forces had been fighting in small units that slipped through the forest and into villages. They have popped up unexpectedly on streets in the town of Vovchansk, a village about two 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 had slowed in and around the village, though artillery barrages are frequent.