Ukraine’s CV90 Fighting Vehicles Are Rolling Into Vovchansk, Their Crews Expecting A Russian Invasion From The North

Russian forces captured Vovchansk in the early days of the wider Russian invasion in February 2022. Ukrainian forces liberated the city seven months later as part of their first counteroffensive. Now thousands of residents are fleeing—some for the second time in just over two years—as elements of three Russian regiments close in on the city.

The battle for Vovchansk could be one of the first big fights of Russia’s new campaign in the north. After several days of probes, the main dynamics are taking shape.

It’s possible Ukrainian defenses in and around the city are thinner than they should be. “The first line of fortifications and mines simply did not exist,” Ukrainian army officer Denis Yaroslavsky claimed, partially blaming Ukrainian territorial troops who previously held the purportedly incomplete defenses.

Russian commandos are deliberately probing for gaps in Ukrainian lines like might be present in and around Vovchansk. And they’re concentrating their probes in sectors where the geography is advantageous to Russian moves.

In the case of Vovchansk, that means approaching the city from the northwest, where the Donets River forms a protective barrier on the Russians’ right flank. Hugging the river on the way to Vovchansk “allows the enemy to conserve forces,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies explained.

Having identified a vulnerable settlement on favorable terrain, the Russians direct their satellite-guided glide bombs at the settlement as a prelude to a wider attack. According to volunteer Francis Farrell, 20 glide bombs struck Vovchansk on Saturday. “Most of them that we saw just flattened random civilian houses, killing and injuring people and animals,” Farrell wrote.

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