Ukraine War Maps Reveal Kyiv's Recaptured Frontline Positions Near Kharkiv

Ukraine has regained territory northeast of Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, according to new reports, as Russia presses on with attacks on the battered border town of Vovchansk.

Reports from Ukrainian military sources and Russian military blogging accounts suggest Kyiv's troops have recaptured some positions near Hlyboke, a village close to the settlement of Lyptsi, the U.S.-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), said on Tuesday.

Russia launched a cross-border offensive from its Belgorod region into Ukraine's Kharkiv region in early May, quickly gaining a smattering of settlements along two chunks of the border. Moscow's pushes focused around the village of Lyptsi—within around 20 miles of regional capital, Kharkiv City—and the border city of Vovchansk.

Ukraine has said it managed to slow Russia's assault, even as it warned that Moscow was attempting to overstretch Ukrainian resources and divert efforts from the eastern Donetsk region. Kharkiv regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov, described the frontline in northern Kharkiv earlier this week as "stabilized," but warned that although Ukraine can be "confident" on operations around Lyptsi, "battles are going on for every street, for every house" in Vovchansk.

Ukraine has also contended with relentless Russian guided aerial bomb attacks, often launched by Russian jets sticking to Russian territory and out of the way of Ukrainian air defenses.

The U.S. gave the go-ahead late last month for Ukraine to use some American-supplied weapons on internationally-recognized Russian soil to fend off the offensive, although Kyiv is not permitted to use its long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS).

Vitaly Lytvyn, an officer with an intelligence unit under Ukraine's national guard, said earlier this week that Kyiv had "pushed the enemy back a little" from Lyptsi, adding that the "situation is stable, controlled, but difficult."

Russia is "constantly carrying out airstrikes with guided aerial bombs," Lytvyn added.

"Our forces are gradually pushing the occupier out of the Kharkiv region," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday.

In an operational update on Wednesday, Russia's Defense Ministry said its forces had "improved the situation along the frontline" and targeted Ukrainian positions around Lyptsi, Vovchansk and the village of Starytsia, southwest of Vovchansk.

The Centre for Defence Strategies, a Ukraine-based think tank, said on Tuesday that the situation was "tense" in northern Kharkiv, with 14 Russian attacks close to Vovchansk in the previous day and another near Lyptsi.

Ukraine's military said early on Wednesday afternoon local time that Russian troops attacked the north of the Kharkiv region three times since the start of the day, including twice near Vovchansk.

"Russian forces recently advanced within Vovchansk amid continued Russian ground attacks in the area on June 18," the ISW think tank said on Tuesday.

Ukrainian military sources claimed earlier this week that Ukrainian soldiers were working to surround and cut off Russian troops in an aggregate plant in northern Vovchansk. The reports were disputed by several Russian sources.

Yurii Povkh, a spokesperson for Ukraine's Kharkiv Operational Strategic Group operating in the area, told Ukrainska Pravda that "dozens" of Russian troops had been "cut off in a specific area of the city."

A Russian soldier, appearing in a clip published by the independent Russian outlet Astra over the weekend, said just over 10 percent of the soldiers in his unit remained after facing Ukrainian artillery fire and drones in Vovchansk.

Fighting further south in Kharkiv, including east of the city of Kupiansk and down to the border with Donetsk, has blazed on for much of the full-scale war.

"The enemy did not ease the pressure" around Kupiansk, Syniehubov told Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform on Tuesday.

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