President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced a new wave of offensive that was launched by the Russian occupation army in the Kharkiv axis and, as of the Friday morning, was stopped by the Ukrainian defense forces' artillery fire.

"Russia started a new wave of offensive operations in this [Kharkiv] direction. Ukrainian troops, brigades and artillery met it there. […] At around 7 a.m., we met them by fire and the main thing is that we have stopped them by artillery so far," he said at a joint press conference with his Slovak counterpart in Kyiv.

According to the head of state, Russia might be still bringing up its forces to the Kharkiv axis.

"This is the fact. But our military command was aware of this and distributed its forces so as to welcome the enemy by fire," he said.

The president also said that as of 13 p.m., fierce artillery battle was continuing in the border districts of Kharkiv region.

As reported, in the early hours of May 10, Russian occupation forces on armored vehicles made an attempt to break through the defense in Kharkiv region. The defense forces repelled the attack.