Russia has LOST the battle for Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv after bombarding it for weeks

Russian forces are giving up on Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv and retreating after weeks of bombardment and a failed effort to encircle it. 

Ukraine’s general staff said the Russians were pulling back from the northeastern city and focusing on guarding supply routes, as Kyiv and Moscow’s forces engaged in a grinding battle for the country’s eastern industrial heartland.

Russian forces will instead focus on launching mortar, artillery and airstrikes in the eastern Donetsk province in order to ‘deplete Ukrainian forces and destroy fortifications.’

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said Ukraine ‘appears to have won the Battle of Kharkiv.’ It said, ‘Ukrainian forces prevented Russian troops from encircling, let alone seizing Kharkiv, and then expelled…