Got an update from my wife's family in Kozacha Lopan, Kharkiv Oblast. As I have mentioned before, my in-laws have been trapped there since the day the war started. My wife was able to escape with her friend and cousin, but for the most part evacuations and escapes have been impossible from KL for a while.
My wife's family have been speaking to everybody there about evacuations for the people remaining. They have been denied at every turn. If you try and flee towards Kharkiv city, you get shot in the back. The Russians are using KL as a staging area to fire artillery towards Dergachi and other villages south of them, where the UA army are stationed as they attempt to move up north. Because Russian artillery is shot from KL, the UA army shoots back at KL which means residence there are under fire from both sides. It's a brutal situation with some close calls for them recently. Still many people dead and houses destroyed on their street.
Today my MIL said that a bunch of people went to the mayor to see about him organizing evacuations. However this mayor of KL is such a piece of ####. The actual mayor ran away so this new mayor is a Russian-instilled puppet who works for the RU side. He blatantly told the people asking for evacuations today (and every day) that he will not organize anything, as the more people stay in the village the less likely the Ukrainian army is to shoot them with artillery. As we suspected, he is using the people there as human shields. The only thing he said is that if the Russian army can push the UA army more south towards Kharkiv city then he'll arrange evacuations since the people living there are no longer needed (as human shields). But that's probably bull#### too since there have been plenty of times where there hasn't been fighting there and he still refused to evacuate anyone.
There isn't a lot of news about the fighting north of Kharkiv city with most of the attention focused on Donbas and the south. MIL talked to some RU soldiers on their street and they said their orders from their superiors are to take Kharkiv city at any cost and the plan is to never give up occupied territory north of Kharkiv. Many people mistakenly think that the RU army retreated from Kharkiv like they did around Kyiv and that Kharkiv is now safe. The truth is that while the fighting did die down somewhat over the past few months relative to the start, it is starting to pick up again. Kharkiv still gets hit everyday by artillery within rage and missiles from Belgorod.
This redditor r/Sabreflux has been giving daily updates on what is happening in the city itself. It has died down from the start of the war, but Russian terrorist attacks are still taking place everyday.
Over the weekend the post secondary school my wife graduated from in Kharkiv was
hit by a missile. According to one Russian statement, there was a meeting there taking place between NATO officials and Nazis
.