Ukraine Regains Ground in Kharkiv as Dozens of Russian Troops 'Surrender'

Ukrainian forces captured dozens of Russian troops in Kharkiv Oblast on Sunday, a military official said, amid reports Kyiv has regained some ground in the embattled region.

Some 60 Russian soldiers were captured near the war-ravaged town of Vovchansk, where fierce battles are ongoing, Nazar Voloshin, a spokesman for Ukraine's Khortytsia operational-strategic group told local publication Liga.net.

Ukraine controls 70 percent of Vovchansk, which had a prewar population of 17,000. Fierce clashes have been ongoing after the Kremlin's forces kick-started an offensive in the Kharkiv region on May 10, seizing a number of villages on Ukraine's northeastern frontier, and forcing thousands of civilians to flee.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that Russian losses during its Kharkiv offensive were eight times higher than Ukraine's. Newsweek could not independently verify the claim and has contacted Russia's Defense Ministry via email for comment.

Julian Röpcke, an open data analyst with the publication Bild, shared footage on X (formerly Twitter) that first circulated on Telegram, which purportedly shows the moment the Russian troops were captured.

"Russian soldiers seems to surrender in N-E #Vovchansk. This is around 600 meters north of what Russian sources claim to be the current front line. So Russia seems to be losing ground there," wrote Röpcke.

"Ukrainian troops re-re-recaptured several areas in N-E #Vovchansk, using reinforcements via a German-supplied 'Biber' bridge laying vehicle," he wrote in another post. "Russian invasion forces further advanced S-W to the center and are now around 400 away meters from the destroyed Vovcha bridge."

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based think tank, said in its latest analysis of the conflict in Ukraine on Monday that Kyiv's forces had recently regained some positions within Vovchansk.

"Geolocated footage published on June 2 shows that Ukrainian forces regained a position along Dukhovna Street in central Vovchansk. Additional geolocated footage published on June 3 shows Russian and Ukrainian forces engaged in close combat along Dukhovna Street, suggesting that Ukrainian forces are counterattacking to contest Russian control of positions along the street," the think tank said.

"Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets sardonically noted that Russian milbloggers are complaining about increased Ukrainian counterattacks in the Kharkiv direction and warned that Russian sources may claim in coming days that Russian forces repelled a 'serious' Ukrainian counteroffensive in this direction," the ISW added.

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