12 May: Convoys Ablaze! Ukrainians Destroy Russian Convoys Already at the Border - Reporting from Ukraine

Day 809: May 12

Today, there are a lot of updates from the Kharkiv direction.

Here, Russians started a new offensive operation to push back Ukrainians by up to twenty kilometers from the border and set the ground for further operations aimed at Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine. For this ambitious effort, Russians allocated fifty thousand troops, four hundred tanks, nine hundred and thirty armored vehicles, and nine hundred artillery pieces. Russians have been building up forces in this area for a long time and have attempted to conceal their troop movements in order not to draw suspicion. However, it was soon realized that Russians were deploying their troops and heavy equipment by railways to isolated parts of the Kursk region, only for Russian units to march to their deployment points in the Belgorod region. To further reinforce the Northern Grouping of Forces, Russians also redeployed units from Kupiansk to support the Kharkiv offensive.

Russians had been preparing for this operation for a while with severe missile strikes on the energy infrastructure in Kharkiv, destroying a very significant part of it and causing an energy deficit in the whole region.

Russians also targeted Ukrainian forces concentrations, equipment, and command posts in Kharkiv, which shows that Russians were preparing for an offensive operation. Ukrainians knew this and prepared a network of mighty fortifications to halt any Russian attack in the direction of Kharkiv or north of Kupiansk. Ukrainian military intelligence even predicted the approximate start of the Russian offensive around the middle of May.

It is important to note that only thirty-two thousand soldiers are deployed in the Belgorod region for an offensive on Kharkiv, while ten thousand are in the Kursk and eight thousand in the Bryansk region. The Commander of this Northern Grouping of Forces is General Alexander Lapin, who has an abysmal reputation in the Russian army for two significant defeats precisely in the Kharkiv region during past Ukrainian counteroffensive operations.

Before the start of ground assaults, Russians initiated an intense barrage of artillery and rocket systems as well as glide bombs deployed by the Russian Air Force. The goal was to suppress Ukrainian firing positions and soften their defenses along the border before the ground operations started. On top of that, Russians are trying to make the deployment of reinforcements and supplies difficult for Ukrainians by destroying two significant bridges in Zybine and Stariy Saltiv. As a result of such severe shelling and bombardment, tremendous damage was inflicted on Ukrainian settlements at the border. Most of the town of Vovchansk was destroyed overnight due to the intense bombardment.

The offensive effort is divided into two axes, one towards the village of Lyptsi and the other towards Vovchansk. In the Lyptsi direction, Russians deployed small assault groups across the border to secure the nearby border settlements for further advances. Russian forces managed to advance up to four kilometers across the border and initiated engagements near the villages of Strylechna, Pilna, Krasne, and Borysivka. Even though Russian sources reported that these villages were captured, it is essential to note that they were and continue to be in the grey zone – maintaining a permanent presence in them is problematic and entails inevitable destruction.

Meanwhile, in the direction of Vovchansk, the situation is much more complicated for the Russians because it is a town of seventeen thousand people. Vovchansk is just five kilometers away from the border. In contrast, the immediate border settlements of Pletenivka, Ohirtseve, and Hatyshche are sites of fighting places very close to Russian positions. By the looks of it, with the destruction of a bridge in nearby Zybine, Russians strive to reduce supplies to Vovchansk, likely in an attempt to weaken Ukrainian defenses for an easier takeover of the town. However, Vovchansk is approximately the same size as Chasiv Yar and Krasnohorivka, both sites of intense battles in Donbas, where Russians allocate tens of thousands of troops for such urban fighting...