Ukraine ‘breaks through front line in east and nears key town’

Ukrainian firefighters work on heavily damaged buildings after a Russian rocket attack in central Kharkiv, Ukraine (Andrii Marienko/AP)

Western defence officials and analysts have said they believe Ukraine has punched through Russian front lines south of the country’s second-largest city, taking thousands of square miles of territory and threatening to cut off Russian supply lines.

The British Ministry of Defence (MoD), in an online briefing, said it believed the Ukrainians had advanced as much as 50 kilometres (30 miles) in the advance south of Kharkiv, north-eastern Ukraine.