Russia on Saturday said it had captured five villages in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region during a surprise ground offensive that prompted mass evacuations, as President Volodymyr Zelensky made an urgent call for military aid.
Moscow's defense ministry said its troops had "liberated" five villages in Ukraine's Kharkiv region near the Russian border -- Borysivka, Ogirtseve, Pletenivka, Pylna and Strilecha -- as well as taking one village in the Donetsk region.
Ukraine's defense ministry said Friday Russia had launched a surprise attack on the Kharkiv region, making small advances into a border zone from where it had been pushed back nearly two years ago. Later Saturday, Ukraine's military command said that Russia's ground troops had had air support.
Zelensky said in his nightly address on Saturday that Ukrainian troops had been carrying out counterattacks in border villages in Kharkiv region.
"Disrupting Russian offensive plans is now our number one task," he said, AFP reported.
There has been "heavy fighting" in the border area and 1,775 people have been evacuated, Kharkiv regional governor Oleg Synegubov wrote on social media earlier Saturday.
Also Saturday, a missile strike killed three people when it hit a restaurant called Paradise in the Russian-held city of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine.
The attack using US HIMARS precision rocket launchers killed two diners and a restaurant worker and wounded nine, officials from the Russian-backed administration said.
Officials in Kyiv had warned for weeks that Moscow might try to attack its northeastern border regions, pressing its advantage as Ukraine struggles with delays in Western aid and manpower shortages.
Military expert Olivier Kempf told AFP Saturday that Russia's ground operation was most likely aimed at creating a buffer zone near its Belgorod region, recently raided by pro-Ukrainian units, or diverting Ukraine's resources from the Donetsk region.
"Twenty-four hours after the launch of the operations, it doesn't look like a big offensive," said the associate fellow at the Foundation for Strategic Research, a French think tank.
Washington announced a new $400 million military aid package for Kyiv hours after the offensive began, and said it was confident Ukraine could repel any fresh Russian campaign.