The Battle for Vovchansk (May – August 2024)

It is now five months since Russia launched its cross-border invasion of Kharkiv province. In all this time, Russian forces have failed to advance beyond two shallow salients created in the first days of the operation.  The reasons for the Russian failure, and Ukrainian difficulties organising a defence, carry many lessons.  With attention currently focused on Kursk and the Pokrovsk front, this article examines the forgotten but ongoing battle for Vovchansk.

The ‘Volchansk-Lyptsi offensive operation’ is launched

The day after the 9 May Victory Day parade, the Russian Army launched an offensive across the Belgorod-Kharkiv border.  The attack had been signalled for weeks. Even so, it came as a surprise. According to captured plans shared with The Economist (May 25th – ‘Under Russian Guns’), the intent was to encircle Kharkiv and bring the city under artillery range – Putin’s long-threatened ‘buffer zone’. H-hour was intended for 15-16 May but brought forward to coincide with Victory Day. However, within one week, the assaults stalled.

Around 32,000 soldiers were deployed in Belgorod Oblast for the offensive on Kharkiv but only around half were used (likely due to insufficient equipment). The commander of the so-called ‘Northern Group of Forces’ was the luckless but loyal Colonel-General Alexander Lapin who has been in and out of favour in the war. Most recently he has been appointed commander of the new Leningrad Military District. Major formations under his command on this front include 11th Army Corps (Kaliningrad), 44th Army Corps (Leningrad), 6th Combined Arms Army (Leningrad) and 1st Guards Tank Army (Moscow).

Captured Russian soldiers revealed that units involved in the initial wave included 128th ‘Storm V’ Assault Brigade, 138th Motor Rifle Brigade and 25th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade. They had the task of capturing Vovchansk ‘in two days.’ Ukrainian sources also reported limited elements from 1st Motor Rifle Regiment (2nd Motor Rifle Division, 1st Guards Tank Army).

138th Motor Rifle Brigade has a poor record: in the past it has been mired in hazing scandals, it has experienced refuseniks, and it was routed in 2022 and withdrawn to Russia. 25th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade was also routed and withdrawn to Belgorod.  Neither formation has demonstrated zeal for Putin’s war.

The offensive was launched at 3am with heavy artillery and rocket barrages and glide bombs.  A massive EW attack suppressed all Starlink terminals, most GPS receivers, and most Motorola radios – the primary tactical radio system in the Ukrainian Army.  The vanguards were supported by a large number of FPV drones. Advancing units displayed a new tactical symbol: rhombuses with two crosswise stripes. It was believed this referenced Odin’s spear (the Gungir rune).

Two salients were developed 35 kilometres apart and separated by a major water feature (the Siverskyi Donets River). The western axis was pointed at the small town of Lyptsi and the eastern axis at Vovchansk.  By the night of 10 May, it was reported Russian troops had taken control of the border villages of Streleche, Krasnoye, Borisovka and Pylnaya,‘advancing with four to five infantry battalions.’ The eastern salient appeared to develop one day late. Ohirtseve, Hatyshche, and Pleten’ivka (north and north-west of Vovchansk) were not reported under attack until 11 May.  On 12 May, Russian troops were on the outskirts of Vovchansk having driven down the T210B minor road from the border just five kilometres away.  Vovchansk is a large town with a pre-war population of 17,000 people.  Crucially, it sits astride the Vovcha River, a feature that would play an important role in the ensuing battle.

By the end of the second day the Ukrainian MOD reported:

‘Battles are being fought for the border town of Vovchansk. The enemy has used significant forces to attack the town, consisting of up to 5 battalions, and does not count its own losses… Currently, the enemy is having a tactical success.’

The Ukrainian reaction – confusion and controversy

The immediate Ukrainian reaction to the Russian offensive was confused and controversial. The story is worth telling because it illustrates challenges that continue to test the Ukrainian war effort.

At the turn of the year, command of the Kharkiv OTU was vested in a General Hrytskov, an officer of poor reputation and reported drink problem.  With growing evidence of a Russian build-up he was replaced by General Yulii Galushkin on 24 April.  However, Galushkin was an old-style, managerial senior officer with no combat experience.  Two days after the launch of the offensive he, in turn, was replaced by General Mykhailo Drapaty.  Thus, in the space of seven weeks, there were three changes of command in a sector the Ukrainian high command knew was about to be attacked in a major new Russian offensive.

The deployment of forces to this sector was similarly inadequate.  The single 125th Lviv Territorial Defence Brigade was deployed to the border area. However, only the command element deployed (all 28 officers have been subject to dereliction of duty charges, whether fairly or not).  The brigade’s two organic battalions did not deploy. Instead, the brigade was allocated two battalions it had never worked with (415th Separate Rifle Battalion from 23rd Mechanised Brigade, and 172nd Battalion from 120th Vinnytsia Territorial Defence Brigade), and one drone company.  This grouping was allocated a 45 kilometre frontage to defend.

Support was completely insufficient. All the brigade’s support weapons (mortars, grenade launchers etc) were bought, not issued, by the efforts of the Lviv City Council and the ‘Return Alive’ fund.  The formation deployed with no artillery or tanks (albeit three guns and two tanks were allocated on the eve of the Russian offensive). The brigade was supplied just 1,700 anti-personnel mines – to cover 45 kilometres – and a larger number of anti-tank mines.  Fortifications in the first 3-5 kilometre belt from the border were few, but the Kharkiv City administration has explained it was very difficult to construct obstacles in this area due to Russian targeting (the main defensive lines are at 12-23 kilometres and 20 kilometres from the international border).

On 28 April, the brigade was informed of the likely Russian offensive and began to make preparations for the defence of its sector.  On 4 May, less than a week before the offensive, the Commander of OSU Khortytsia, Lieutenant General Yuriy Sodol, and Commander of the Kharkiv OTU, General Galushkin visited the brigade (Sodol was Galushkin’s commander; on 24 June he was sacked, lasting only four months in post, and was replaced by Brigadier General Andrii Hnatov).  Yet nothing came of this visit.  There was, it seems, under-appreciation of the weak state of the border defences and difficulties the brigade might face.  The only change was 125th Brigade’s subordinate battalions were ordered to deploy to forward positions (which they would abandon within 48 hours), and 42nd Mechanised Brigade (an under-manned formation battered in fighting in Bakhmut) was ordered to backfill vacated rear positions. On the day before the assault, three GUR sub-units also deployed to the area. These would prove invaluable in stiffening the collapsing defence line.

Remarkably, no units were deployed behind the border guards north of Vovchansk.  The minor road that leads from the border to the settlement was open. If the Russians had known, they could have simply driven into the town as if on parade(Cold War students will remember memorising templates showing Soviet recce groups tens of kilometres ahead of the vanguards; these have vanished in the war, nobody attempts deep or even close recce in vehicles because of the threat of drones).  A complaining 57th Motorised Brigade was ordered to take positions in Vovchansk but as one observer who was on the spot reported:

‘I can personally say what I saw, the city of Vovchansk was not at all prepared for street battles and for defence…In the city itself, on the outskirts, there are no lines of defence, no positions, not even any high-quality field fortifications. And the enemy entered the city absolutely calmly. I want to tell you that our troops were not in the city of Vovchansk at night, on the evening of May 12. In general, units of the 57th brigade entered Vovchansk in the morning…from May 12 to 13…there was a situation when there was no one in the city for several hours, and the enemy could simply enter…’

For all this disastrous start the situation was quickly recovered by General Mykhailo Drapaty.  Reinforcements were rushed to the town: the veteran 82nd Airborne Brigade, 71st Jaeger (Mountain) Brigade, 2nd Battalion 36th Marine Brigade, and a Lyut police battalion (these are battle-hardened infantry, not civilian police). The Russian advance was checked and confined to the north-west industrial quadrant of the town, north of the Vovcha River.  On 14 May, two unsupported Russian tanks attempted to push further south and were quickly destroyed (these are the only Russian tanks that have made an appearance in Vovchansk, a measure of how the tank has disappeared from the battlefield).  Very quickly, large ‘meat attacks’ became small ‘meat attacks. Eventually the Russians resorted to infiltrating assault groups of no more than five people, quickly destroyed by the Ukrainians.  Within a matter of days, stalemate reigned.

‘Bakhmut in five days’

Faced with resolute Ukrainian resistance, the Russians resorted to two tactics.  First, Vovchansk began to suffer what every other Ukrainian frontline settlement has endured – total destruction.  Using S-300 missiles (these are air defence weapons lobbed in ballistic trajectories that cannot be intercepted), 500kg glide bombs, 220mm thermobaric rockets launched from TOS-1A Solntsepok, and 240mm mortars lobbed from 2S4 ‘Tulpan’, the Russians began to methodically destroy Vovchansk, focusing first on the industrial area.  Accuracy and timeliness of targeting was poor (and a hazard to Russian civilians; Russian media sources report as many as 93 bombs have fallen off the pylons of aircraft, the most deadly the bomb that hit an apartment block in Belgorod City).

Next the Russians began to target bridges in an effort to complicate Ukrainian logistics and isolate the town.  The major bridges at Zybine and Stariy Saltiv further south were hit, the latter by a Kh-38 missile.  Several minor bridges in the town and outskirts were also attacked. On 28 May, Su-34 dropped three glide bombs on the major east-west bridge in Vovchansk.  However, Ukrainian engineers somewhat mitigated these attacks by speedily erecting pontoon bridges or using German-supplied bridge layers.

The Russians did not have it all their own way.  Emboldened by the arrival of desperately needed munitions and partial suspension of the prohibition on using NATO weapons against targets in Russia, the Ukrainians mounted a clever and effective campaign against depth targets in Belgorod.

Over a period of a month, as many as 300 HIMARS rockets were reportedly launched, especially targeting Russian S-300 and S-400 air defence systems and radars.  This had two important effects.  First, the daily rocket attacks on Kharkiv City abated.  Second, safe corridors were created for Ukrainian strike aircraft (launching JDAMs) and helicopters to mount raids on Russian positions.  In a first, Ukrainian Su-29s mounted a cross-border raid hitting a command post and ammunition storage site near Belgorod.

Poor Russian morale and obsolete equipment

Western Military District-ZVO (today the Leningrad and Moscow Military Districts) has consistently been the worst performing and least motivated in the war. Putin’s foolish ‘special military operation’ has relied on cannon fodder from poor Siberian and Far Eastern communities, as well as minorities such as the Buryats. This has been evident again in the fighting in Kharkiv.

A surprising number of Russians have chosen surrender despite being only five kilometres from the border.  In one incident, as many 30 were reported captured, the largest haul at the time.  In another, a Russian abandoned by comrades hid for three weeks then surrendered as Ukrainian troops re-took lost positions.

The ‘meat attacks’ have lowered morale. ‘Out of a hundred people, 12 are left,’ complained  contract soldier Anton Andreev from 5th company, 1009th regiment in a recorded video. Soldiers from 153rd Tank Regiment (47th Tank Division) have refused orders. Terekhov Vadim, a contract soldier serving in a ‘Storm V’ unit in 128th Assault Brigade, told how his commanders ordered him to commit suicide with a grenade if captured. ‘Why should I let myself die?’ he queried.   In another video, a Russian PoW dressed in mixed clothing complained of lack of provision and told his captors: ‘This is what we find in the houses, that’s what we wear.’

To stem desertions, a Chechen Akhmat battalion was deployed to act as ‘barrier troops’ (i.e. threaten soldiers attempting to run away). On 3 June, Russian opposition outlet Verstka reported Russian military authorities had suspended trials of refuseniks and were simply sending hundreds of objecting Russian soldiers to the front. Head of the State Duma Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin recently revealed as many as 10,000 migrants had been forcibly rounded up and sent to Ukraine. Duped Africans have been conscripted in a so-called ‘Africa Corps’. The Russian Army is desperate. Borrowing Solzhenitsyn’s phrase, it has become ‘our sewage disposal system’.

ZVO was traditionally the premier district receiving the latest and best kit.  Yet in one attack west of Vovchansk, Ukrainian drone pilots destroyed or immobilised T-62Ms, BMP-1s and 2S1s.  These are all vehicles dating to the 1960s.  For a British reader, it would be as if the Army were still fielding Centurion tanks, the Saracen APC, and Abbot self-propelled guns.

The battle for the Aggregate Plant

By July the fighting focused on the Aggregate Plant north of the Vovcha River. On the Russian side, this took on the aspect of a pathological obsession. The cost of this fixation has been hundreds of lives. High losses forced the Russians to withdraw units.Reinforcements were then fed into the battle from multiple formations.

However, Russian forces continued to suffer heavy losses all through the summer. According to one Russian milblogger, forces attacking in Vovchansk had already suffered a third of the casualties that Russian forces suffered in their four-month campaign to seize Avdiivka. This resulted in the withdrawal of some of the reinforcing units, including 83rd VDV, defeated by 116th Separate Mechanised Brigade (that boasts an eminently sensible motto: ‘Live to Win’). Separately, the commander of 83rd VDV, Colonel Artyom Gorodilov, was arrested on fraud charges. There was speculation this may have been punishment for the poor performance of the paratroopers.   

 

Eventually, on 24 September, following a carefully orchestrated operation, the commander of GUR unit ‘Timur’ confirmed the capture of the Aggregate Plant. Multiple special force groups, in fact, had been involved: ‘Stugna’, ‘Paragon’, ‘Yunger’, ‘RDK’, ‘BDK’, and ‘Terror’.  Around two dozen prisoners were captured and ‘several dozen’ Russian dead were found on the site.  The 10 October was the first day since the incursion that no fighting at all was reported in Vovchansk.

Concluding thoughts

The incursion into Kharkiv has once again displayed the blundering incompetence of the Russian Army. A town that was meant to be captured in two days, five kilometres from the international border, has still not been captured five months later. An offensive was launched on an anniversary date, to please Putin, with poorly motivated and ill-prepared troops. Intelligence was woeful: the Russians had no real idea of Ukrainian dispositions and simply advanced to contact.  Incapable of all arms operations or even effective coordination above company level due to the lack of a working tactical radio system, the advances were checked, albeit by a chaotic and scrambled Ukrainian response.

Faced with resistance the Russians resorted to ‘meat attacks’.  A captured doctrine manual shows the Russian high command expects company ‘storm detachments’ to last no more than two days before they are destroyed and need to be replaced. The corpses, as countless YouTube videos testify, are left in the fields for days, or not recovered at all. In a videoposted by a Russian soldier, as many as 18 blackened corpses in advanced stages of decomposition could be seen: ‘How will they be identified now?’ he lamented.  In the usual way, civilians have been shot, Ukrainian prisoners abused, and homes looted (all incidents captured on video).  Frustrated Russian soldiers have shot at each other, recorded by a Ukrainian drone operator.  Others have committed suicide (the 32ndYouTube video this author has viewed of a Russian soldier shooting himself; a youngish man who blew his brains out).

Putin and the robotic Gerasimov see none of this. Neither has been anywhere near a frontline trench. Putin – ‘the bunker grandpa’ – resides in the luxurious, Soviet-era presidential complex at Novo-Ogaryevo, with its indoor, Olympic-sized swimming pool. Gerasimov retires to a government luxury apartment. (If the assassinated Prighozin could read these words now he would be cheering the author loudly). Hundreds of kilometres from an avoided reality, they grasp a single, bankrupt strategy:  destruction of lives, Russian and Ukrainian; destruction of towns and villages; and destruction of Ukraine’s countryside. A resident in occupied Kherson City perfectly expressed the mentality of the ‘brainless’ Russian Army and captured the universal psychology of an oppressive totalitarian state: ‘It is like sexual intercourse with an impotent person,’ she wrote, ’who has to endlessly repeat that he is strong.’