Karina Bovsunovska10:59, 10.05.25

The battle for the city of Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region has been going on for a year.

Fighters of the 34th separate motorized infantry battalion “Vovkodav” showed what Vovchansk, in the Kharkiv region , looks like now, in this direction, exactly a year ago, the Russians launched an offensive. 

As the battalion reported , the Russian occupiers shelled the city with artillery, rockets, and aerial bombs all night, and in the morning they began assault operations. Already on May 10, 2024, the 34th Separate Motorized Infantry Battalion “Vovkodavi” entered the battle.

“The battalion was initially stationed in the settlement of Tykhey. This is the eastern outskirts of Vovchansk. We stopped the enemy and even carried out offensive actions. Then the decision was made to transfer us to the city of Vovchansk itself. And from that moment on, we have been in Vovchansk for more than 10 months. During this time, we have not lost our positions, the battalion holds its defense area. Then there was a large-scale operation to liberate the Aggregate Plant in Vovchansk. After the plant was liberated, we conducted a sweep, and it also moved into our zone of responsibility,” noted the commander of the Fartovy battalion.

It is noted that during this year the city was practically razed to the ground. Also, the difficult conditions of urban combat have become almost impossible, so the defense has to be kept in ruins. 

“All that’s left of the houses are bricks and concrete fragments. Under them are holes. This is a war in holes. We are in holes, the occupiers are in holes. We see the enemy’s movement, the infantry comes out and shoots them. That’s the whole tactic. Everything is simple and difficult at the same time,” the commander emphasized.

In addition, equipment cannot enter the city, and the work of artillery is limited, so in such conditions, infantry comes to the fore. 

“Where there is no infantryman, there is no front. The infantry works here, all other units work for it. You can be a super cool drone pilot, but if there are no infantrymen in front of you who will hold the enemy, then what’s the point of you flying great or shooting from a Javelin. The emphasis is on infantry, the most attention is paid to infantry, because infantry bears the greatest burden of war,” “Fartovy” believes.

According to him, the enemy conducts assault operations every day, unsuccessfully trying to push through the Ukrainian defense. It is noted that in just 4 months of this year, the “Wolfhounds” have destroyed over 500 occupiers. 

“I think this is their deliberate tactic. For example, there are three fighters sitting at our position. They make runs. The first one is dead, the second one is dead… And they continue like this, counting on the fact that some katsap will still reach and jump in. There is still some shooting, throwing grenades, the fighters themselves are getting exhausted. And sometimes Russian commanders fool their superiors that someone has come in, and ask people to be reinforced, counting on someone else to try to “catch up”,” the battalion commander noted.

As “Fartovy” emphasized, while the military holds the occupiers in this direction, they are defending other settlements. 

“By doing this, they are weakening the front somewhere, and other units – assault, airborne, somewhere are advancing in other directions. And we are standing here. That’s our job,” the military man noted.

The press service of “Vovkodaviv” also added in the statement:

“For the Russians, Volchansk has become a meat grinder into which they constantly throw new meat, proving that human lives are nothing to them. The occupiers are razing the once beautiful industrial city to the ground, proving that all they need is territory. We will gnaw at this wild pack as long as necessary, we will take revenge for every destroyed house and ruined life.”

Fighting in the Kharkiv region – latest news

DeepState previously reported that the National Guard had retaken positions in the Kharkiv region , specifically near Lyptsy. According to the military, the total area of ​​the deoccupied territory is over 2 million square meters (more than 200 hectares).

At the same time, Pavlo Shamshyn, spokesman for the operational-tactical group “Kharkiv”, said that  the Armed Forces of Ukraine won an important battle in the Kharkiv region , namely, they restored positions near Lyptsy, liberating the “Berlin” forest massif from the Russian occupiers.

(C)UNIAN 2025