"Today I am in Kharkiv," Zelensky said on social media, indicating that he chaired meetings on the region's defense and the restoration of energy infrastructure heavily damaged by Russian strikes. "The city and the entire Kharkiv region deserve our full support, gratitude and respect," he wrote on social media. Russian forces have engaged in street fighting in the city of Vovchansk, in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region, and have suffered heavy casualties, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army said on Tuesday. "The enemy is completely bogged down in street fighting in Vovchansk and has suffered very heavy losses," General Oleksandr Syrsky said in a message on social media cited by the French news agency AFP. According to Syrsky, Russia has been forced to send in reserves to continue the assault. Further south, in the same Kharkiv region, the Russians have also been attacking the Kupiansk sector for almost a year. "The situation is complicated in Kyslivka, where the enemy is trying to break through our defenses and reach the Oskil River," the general said. Russian troops have been conducting an offensive in the Kharkiv region, which borders Russia, since May 10, and have claimed to have captured several localities. Some of these localities had been recovered by Ukraine in 2023, during a counteroffensive launched in the summer that had modest results. According to Kiev, the offensive in Kharkiv aims to break through Ukrainian defensive lines, weakened by two years of war. The Ukrainian army is also complaining about the lack of new recruits and the shortage of weapons due to months of hesitation by the West regarding military aid. Russia claims to have launched the May offensive in northeastern Ukraine to create a buffer zone that would prevent Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory. In the Donbas (east), General Syrsky reported fierce clashes in the areas of Chasiv Yar, Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, where the Russians have been gaining ground for months, without yet achieving a decisive breakthrough. In Moscow, the Ministry of Defense on Tuesday released images of what it said was the raising of the Russian flag in Klishchiivka, in the Donetsk region (Donbas), the Russian news agency TASS reported. "The images show the bodies of soldiers from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, abandoned on the battlefield during the withdrawal of the Ukrainian army from the populated area," the ministry said. "The video also captured the moment when the Russian national flag and a copy of the victory flag were unfurled in the populated area," it added. The information released by Ukraine and Russia on the course of the war that began in February 2022 cannot be independently confirmed immediately. Read Also: Russia suffers "very heavy losses" in street fighting in Kharkiv (Portuguese version)