Frontline report: Aggregate plant becomes focal point of Vovchansk battle

Today, there are a lot of updates from the Kharkiv direction.

Here, Russians are trying to advance across the river into southern Vovchansk to cut off Ukrainians in the Citadel from the mainland, while Ukrainian forces are attempting to advance from the Tykhe area to cut off Russian forces from the mainland and take them into a pocket.

The primary goal of the Russian forces in Vovchansk is twofold: to relieve their besieged troops at the aggregate plant and to weaken Ukrainian positions in the Citadel. Russian forces at the aggregate plant have been surrounded and under siege by Ukrainian troops for over a month. The aggregate plant consists of several large, reinforced buildings that serve as formidable fortifications.

Due to these formidable fortifications, the Ukrainians opted not to assault the plant directly to avoid unnecessary losses. Instead, they conducted air strikes and artillery shelling against the Russians holed up there. As a result, Ukrainian aviators and artillery operators inflicted severe losses on the isolated Russian forces. The only reason the Russians have survived in the aggregate plant is that their main force has been able to supply them with food, medicine, and ammunition via drones.

The Russian forces plan to link up with the troops at the aggregate plant by advancing south and reinforcing them. Once reinforced and resupplied, they aim to use the plant as a stronghold to set up firing positions to suppress Ukrainian positions east of the plant.

This would enable them to advance against weaker Ukrainian positions in residential areas, potentially cutting off the Ukrainian forces in the Citadel or forcing them to withdraw. Achieving this would grant the Russians complete control of the northern part of Vovchansk, setting the stage for further operations southwards.

The worst-case scenario for the Russians would be the surrender of their isolated force in the aggregate plant. This would put the Russians back at square one, allowing the Ukrainians to regain the powerful firing positions needed to halt further assaults. The loss of over two hundred troops at the aggregate plant could severely crush the morale of the main Russian force outside and lead to widespread desertions.

To avoid this scenario, Russian commanders have deployed additional reinforcements to Vovchansk for further assaults. The Russian forces in the greater Kharkiv area are often neglected and under-resourced, leading to a prolonged stalemate. However, with these additional troops, the Russian forces managed to advance by 500 meters. In addition to linking up with the troops at the aggregate plant, they also established positions on the opposite bank of the Vovcha River.

This development poses a significant threat to the Ukrainian fighters, as the Russians can now target the only remaining bridge supplying the Ukrainian garrison north of the town.

Such a significant Russian advance can be attributed to the fact that Ukrainians reduced the number of troops south of the town and redeployed them eastwards to Tykhe. In recent days, Ukrainians have been accumulating a large number of troops in this village for a planned decisive attack that could cut off and encircle the Russian forces in all of Vovchansk.

Russian command was aware of this issue, so they began building a network of trenches and fortifications in front of Tykhe. Unfortunately for the Russians, all the heavy equipment and excavators used to construct these defenses were destroyed. Videos published by Ukrainian drone operators show that they successfully destroyed dozens of excavators and trucks carrying building materials for defensive positions.

The absence of Russian electronic warfare systems or any other countermeasures against the drones indicates that they were constructing these trenches and fortifications in a desperate hurry.

Overall, the Ukrainians made a daring move in the Vovchansk area, trading off some positions in the town to launch a powerful flank attack to encircle Russians in the town. The drone strikes against the Russian equipment and positions in the area go to show that Ukrainian fighters will most certainly attack since massed drone strikes are always meant to soften up defenses before the ground assaults.

In our daily frontline report, we pair up with the military blogger Reporting from Ukraine to keep you informed about what is happening on the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war.