Western weapons and Ukrainian reinforcements have largely stopped Russia’s advance a month after it crossed Ukraine’s northern border. But they arrived too late to save the town of Vovchansk, where the city hall, cultural center, countless apartment buildings and several riverside hotels now lie in ruins.
Bisected by the Vovcha River, Vovchask was once a local tourist attraction and a pleasant base for exploring the nearby chalk hills. But it is also three miles from the Russian border, and when the Russians Cross-border offensive begins on May 10which became a stronghold of the Ukrainian army.
The front line still runs through Vovchansk, with about 70% of it still under Ukrainian control. Fierce fighting and relentless bombing Russian military operations have devastated the town, forcing nearly everyone who remained there to flee.
“My town was quiet, full of trees and flowers! It was flooded with greenery,” former resident Tetyana Polyakova said in an interview last week. She described how wildfires had burned through the forest, leaving the town’s buildings as empty shells, with only black burn marks on the walls. Huge plumes of smoke rose after each fire, enveloping her home and the rest of the town.
“Vovchansk no longer exists,” she said.
The Russian offensive in the north has raised concerns among Ukraine and its Western allies, who fear a Russian breakthrough Potentially endangering KharkovUzbekistan, Ukraine’s second-largest city. In addition to stretching the Ukrainian military, the new front threatens territory in the region that Russia has occupied for several months in 2022.
As bombs and missiles fell on Kharkov and the region, an average of 20 Russian glide bombs (large air-guided bombs) were dropped on Vovchansk every day.
The Ukrainian military rushed several additional brigades to the region, and the United States followed the lead of most of Ukraine’s European allies. Lifting the ban on the use of US weapons in Ukraine Open fire on Russian territory.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan defended the decision in an interview with CBS News on Sunday, saying Russia “is moving directly from one side of the border to the other, and it simply doesn’t make sense to not allow the Ukrainians to fire across the border.”
Ukrainian forces quickly took advantage of the change, using more artillery to help stop the Russian advance. “Right now, Kharkiv remains threatened, but Russia has failed to make substantial progress in the area in recent days,” Mr. Sullivan said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also called the defensive operation a success. “The Russian army failed to carry out the Kharkiv operation,” he said in his daily video address on Saturday.
On Monday, Lt. Denis Yaroslavsky, commander of the reconnaissance battalion of Ukraine’s 57th Brigade, deployed near Vovchansk, said Russian forces were still bombarding the town but had not made progress in capturing it.
“We now have complete control over the enemy’s logistics,” he said in a telephone interview. “They keep trying to enter Vovchansk in small groups, but this will not change the situation.”
The Russian northern offensive has long been seen as limited in scope; its forces are not strong enough to reach Kharkiv. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the goal is Establishing buffer zones along borders.
But Russia appears to have failed to achieve even its more limited goals, said Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and an expert on the Russian military and modern warfare. “They didn’t make as many gains as they could have.”
Mr Li said this was probably because Russia had suffered heavy equipment losses in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine this year as its troops Capture of the town of Avdiivka Then a few villages to the west. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army was also overwhelmed by the long-delayed New weapons and ammunition From the West.
Most experts believe that the main purpose of Russia’s opening of the Northern Front is to disperse the Ukrainian army, transfer some Ukrainian troops away from the Donbas region, and weaken Ukraine’s defense capabilities there.
Although some Ukrainian troops were indeed sent north, Russia has so far not seized on the Ukrainian troop withdrawal from the Donbas region to make new inroads.
“Instead, we see Russia withdrawing its troops from Donbass to Kharkiv, which is a bit strange,” Mr. Li said.
Still, Russia has generally gained the upper hand in the war, taking advantage of Ukraine’s severe lack of ammunition and manpower. In the north, Donbass, and southern regions around Zaporizhia, Russia is slowly advancing while Ukraine is holding its ground.
Vovchansk, which had about 17,000 inhabitants before all-out war, is the latest victim of the chaos. Ukrainian town reduced to ruinsBut its destruction did not significantly change the military balance on the front.
“The offensive on Vovchansk took three weeks, and the offensive on Bakhmut took a year,” said Valery, a junior NCO in the 57th Brigade’s reconnaissance battalion, code-named Fregat. He said he fought for a year in Bakhmut, a hotly contested city in the Donbass region, before finally taking it. May 2023 Falls into Russian hands.
“I went to many places during the three-year war, and everywhere the Russians used similar tactics, they destroyed entire cities and villages,” said Oleksandr Bukar, a Ukrainian National Guard lieutenant colonel who fought in the northern Kharkiv region. “They created ruins to show off their victory.”
Residents of Vovchansk, who have spent two winters without heating or running water because of damage from previous wars, search for wells in town and mark them so others know where to get water.
Many of those who stayed behind volunteered to distribute humanitarian aid to those less able to do so; a large proportion of the remaining population are elderly, who often rely on hot meals provided by aid organization World Central Kitchen.
Even before May 10, the town had been under regular shelling. Those who had stayed despite the danger and hardship were determined not to abandon their homes. Only now were they forced to do so, as those homes had been destroyed.
Ms Polyakova, 53, who has never been evacuated in more than two years of war, said things changed last month when “hell began”.
The town’s community center, a large yellow building where volunteers gathered to receive and distribute aid, was destroyed in the bombing. Ms. Polyakova worked as director of theatrical activities at the Vovchansk Cultural Center. That building was also destroyed.
“Yesterday they bombed my apartment,” she said in an interview in Kharkiv, where she lives in a dormitory for displaced people. “Now I have nowhere to go — my whole area has been destroyed.”
The front line was positioned through the center of Vovchansk, which only exacerbated the losses.
The fighting continued, but the front lines did not move.
“We held our ground, and no one retreated,” said Oleksandr, a drone operator with the 57th Brigade’s reconnaissance battalion. The heavy use of drones made it difficult for either side to advance.
“It reminds me of World War I, when both sides found it very difficult to attack on the Western Front in Europe,” said Ben Barry, senior fellow in land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Polyakova checks Ukrainian soldiers’ channels on the social media app Telegram every day, looking for videos of the destruction of her town. So she knows a bomb hit the roof of her apartment building on June 4. “I love this town — everyone loves it,” she said. “It seems like I can’t just let it go.”
