Ukraine’s second city beats off a Russian assault

IT IS UNCLEAR what Russian soldiers expected as, walking in columns behind armoured vehicles, groups of them attempted to stroll into Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city. Videos on social media, circulating from early morning on February 27th, showed them moving from at least two directions, advancing from the outskirts of the city towards the centre. Hours later the same channels were brim full of videos of abandoned vehicles and cowed, young prisoners of war. Once again, a big Russian assault had failed.

Stanislav Gluzman, an IT entrepreneur who lives in the centre of Kharkiv, a city of 1.5m, said that the Russians must have thought “that Ukrainian forces would capitulate fast and people would be glad to see them.” An advance guard column, he added, had come within 450m of the city’s well-known statue to a Ukrainian national hero and poet, Taras Schevchenko, before being ambushed outside a supermarket. According to a local security official, dozens of Russians were taken prisoner.