29 July 2024. Today there are a lot of updates from the Kharkiv direction in northeastern Ukraine.
The most interesting updates come from the area of Vovchansk. Here, the Russian bridgehead in the south of the town has finally collapsed, forcing them to reorganize and change their plans.
The primary Russian plan was to use their bridgehead to advance toward the southeastern part of the town to cut off Ukrainian forces in northern Vovchansk.
If successful, this plan would isolate the strongest Ukrainian fortifications at the Citadel, complicating the situation for Ukrainian fighters. This development would likely force the remaining Ukrainian forces in southern Vovchansk to retreat, as Russian troops could establish fire control over the town from both the Citadel and the Aggregate plant.
Consequently, this would enable the Russians to stabilize the front in Vovchansk, potentially allowing them to redeploy troops to the town’s flanks to thwart the Ukrainian plan of encirclement.
To implement their plan, the Russians had to organize logistics for their bridgehead to the south. They control the main bridge in the town along Soborna Street, which, despite being partially demolished, serves as the sole supply route providing ammunition and critical supplies to the Russian bridgehead. The entire Russian bridgehead spans approximately 500 meters in width, leaving little room to establish additional pontoon crossings, so any attempt to cross the river is easily detected and thwarted by Ukrainian drones.
Due to drone surveillance and constant strikes on the bridge, the Russians avoided using motor vehicles to transport supplies to the southern bridgehead, as these would likely be destroyed. Instead, they deployed small groups of infantrymen carrying supplies on their backs to the south bank. These small infantry squads attract less attention from drones, especially if they maintain distances between each other, making them harder to target simultaneously. The bridge linking the southern bridgehead was under intense fire from Ukrainian forces, making the movement of Russian troops with supplies extremely challenging.
Although the Russians managed to conceal their troops and maintain a stalemate, they could not deploy additional reinforcements for planned attacks to the south. The Ukrainians outnumber the Russians in the area, forcing the Russians to hold their positions, where they are often located and struck by Ukrainian forces. Additionally, providing medical assistance and evacuating wounded or killed Russian troops is nearly impossible due to the presence of Ukrainian kamikaze drones in the area.
This situation gradually led to severe complications, where the inability to provide medical assistance to the wounded and remove corpses resulted in a dire epidemiological situation. The lack of medical care for injured fighters led to wound infections, further worsening their conditions and causing otherwise preventable deaths. Additionally, the corpses of dead Russian soldiers that couldn’t be buried or removed deteriorated hygienic conditions at Russian frontline positions, increasing the risk of disease spread.
A video published by a Russian fighter near the Citadel confirms the deteriorating conditions with wounded and killed all around. The Russian fighter here talks about the terrible smell of corpses littering his position and how the flies around annoy him. Most of the holdout he was at was not shown because there were too many corpses. The original, uncensored combat footage of all operations can be found on our Telegram channel through the link in the description.
Due to these issues, the Russians could not scale up their offensive, leading to the collapse of their bridgehead south of Vovchansk.
With the Russians pushed out of southern Vovchansk, the Ukrainians stabilized this part of the front along the river and escalated their operations north of the river, aiming to push the Russians out of Vovchansk entirely.
Overall, heavy Russian losses that strained their logistics and combat capability forced them to pull back. These developments could create an opportunity for the Ukrainians to launch a decisive attack north of the town to push out the Russians.
This situation would enable the Ukrainians to hold the northern part of the city at the Citadel, fixing Russian forces in that area and away from the flanks of Vovchansk. With Russian defenses weakened on the eastern and western flanks, a window of opportunity could open for the Ukrainians to counterattack and decisively expel the Russians from Vovchansk.
In our regular 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.
