Yermak valued all the help provided by Washington and the recent package of 60 billion dollars (55.6 billion euros, at the current exchange rate) approved in the US Congress, but stressed that it is necessary to receive this aid "as soon as possible", reported the Europa Press agency.

"Kharkiv is an important strategic city. There are still many people there. We are there and we will continue, but now the hostilities are very close and the Ukrainians are worried, so it is very important that there is help", he stressed, during a meeting with a member of the US Security Council, Michael Carpenter.

The two officials discussed the bilateral security agreement and Yermak stressed that the real power of the United States and the security agreements that the two parties have already signed are taken into account by Kyiv, the Ukrainian presidency said in a statement.

They also discussed the Global Peace Summit, which will be held on June 15 and 16 in Switzerland.

The Ukrainian armed forces acknowledged on Monday that Russian troops are making "tactical advances" in Kharkiv, the country's second largest city, but announced that they had hit two energy production facilities in two Russian border regions.

In the last week, more than 830 clashes were registered on the Kharkiv front, according to the spokesman for the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Dimitro Likhova, who said that the number of Russian air strikes against Ukrainian positions and civilian infrastructure amounts to 580.

"Currently, the enemy has achieved tactical successes", he admitted.

The spokesman also stressed that Russia, despite the "significant losses" it has suffered, has managed to mobilize five more battalions to try to take control of the city of Vovchansk.

The attack on Vovchansk, located about five kilometers from the border with Russia, aims to reconquer the territory that Ukraine managed to recover during the first year of the war and which it has managed to maintain until now.

Russia also wants to make this border town a buffer zone to prevent Ukrainian incursions into Russian territory.

The Ukrainian Defense also announced on Monday that it had launched, through the Security Services of Ukraine (SBU), a drone attack on a fuel depot located in the Russian border region of Belgorod, causing a fire in the infrastructure, and on an electricity substation in Lipetsk, in western Russia, reported the national news agency Ukrinform.

In recent months, Ukraine has attacked more than a dozen refineries and fuel depots located in the territory of the Russian Federation, in an attempt to prevent the supply of fuel to Russian troops occupying its territory and to damage the Russian oil industry.

These drone attacks on Russian oil infrastructure have caused unrest in the United States, whose leaders have called on Ukraine to renounce these actions for fear that they could provoke an escalation of the conflict by Russia and destabilize the international oil market.

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