- author, Jonathan Beale
- role, Defense correspondent, report from Vovchansk
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Denis Yaroslavsky is angry.
As commander of the Ukrainian Special Reconnaissance Force, he participated in the Ukrainian surprise attack on Kharkov in fall 2022, pushing back the first Russian invasion near the border.
But now Dennis and his men face the prospect of repeating it all over again.
Russian forces have made small but significant advances along the border in the Kharkiv region in recent days.
Their advance was only a few miles deep but engulfed about 100 kilometers (62 miles) of Ukrainian territory. In eastern Ukraine, which is more heavily defended, it took Russia several months to accomplish the same thing.
Russia claims its troops have entered the border town of Bovtyansk, which is disputed by Ukraine.
The town has been heavily bombed in recent days and thousands of residents have been evacuated.
Denis wants to know what happened to the Ukrainian defense.
“There was no first line of defense. We saw it. The Russians just came in. There was no minefield or anything, they just came in,” he says.
He showed me a video from drone footage taken a few days earlier that showed a platoon of Russian troops simply walking across the border without offering any resistance.
He said officials had claimed that defense facilities were being built at great expense, but in his view, such defense facilities simply did not exist. “It was either negligence or corruption. It wasn't a failure. It was a betrayal.”
Everyone knew that this invasion was likely to happen. Both Ukrainian and Western intelligence agencies are aware of Russia's military buildup across the border, estimated at up to 30,000 troops.
President Vladimir Putin has also publicly stated his goal of creating a buffer zone within Kharkiv Oblast to protect Russian territory from Ukrainian artillery fire.
However, despite official denials, Ukraine appears to have been ill-prepared.
Denis said from a park in Kharkiv that he would be back at the front with his men within an hour near the city of Vovchansk, just five kilometers (three miles) from the Russian border.
It is reported that Russian troops have already advanced to the outskirts of the town. Dennis said he was worried it would soon be back in Russian hands.
We met up with Oleksi, a local police officer who had previously visited the town and was there to pick up residents trying to flee to safety. He was driving at high speed to avoid Russian drones flying overhead and constant artillery fire.
The prewar population of the town was approximately 20,000. Most left at the start of the war, reducing the population to 3,000, but hundreds more have left in recent days. “It's easier to leave now, before they get killed or injured,” Oleksiy said.
In Kharkov, Russia is advancing using an all-too-familiar tactic: reducing Ukrainian villages and towns to rubble. Oleksiy estimates that Russia fires about 50 to 60 shells into the town every hour. Then, a glide bomb was launched from a Russian jet dozens of kilometers from the front lines and far outside Ukraine's limited air defenses.
Russia launches about 100 glide bombs a day along a 1,000-kilometer front. Over the course of an hour, six jet-like screeches were heard, followed by an earth-shaking explosion.
Serhii's house was destroyed by one such glide bomb. Standing among the smoking rubble, he told me that his wife, Svetlana, was seriously injured. He had a wound on his hand that had been burned by the explosion.
He said, “I want to quit, but what should I do?” He pointed to the three goats he didn't want to kill. Somehow, they miraculously survived along with his cat. Serhii was still clinging to his last possessions.
Most of the people remaining in Vovtyansk are elderly and poor.
But Oleksandr, 65, has had enough. We saw him leave the house he grew up in and make the sign of the cross. He gently touched the ground, picked up two bags, and got into his patrol car.
He said he wanted to go to Germany but had no idea how to get there.
Opening a new front here in the north is straining Ukraine's limited resources. The Ukrainian military is running low on ammunition due to delays in approving additional military aid from the United States.
On average, Ukraine fires only one shell for every 10 that Russia fires. This problem is now being gradually resolved with support from the United States.
But the Kharkiv offensive also highlights problems that Ukraine itself has been too slow to address: mobilizing enough troops and building an adequate line of defense. Reinforcements sent to Kharkov have to be brought in from other parts of the front, and reserves are limited.
Ukrainian authorities still insist that Kharkiv city is not under threat of a ground invasion. However, the further Russian forces advance, the more likely they are to come within range of Russian artillery.
Back at the park in Kharkiv, Denis said he believed Russian forces would concentrate in the east and try to capture all of Donbass. But he said Russia was also trying to exploit Ukraine's weaknesses along its 1,000-kilometre front. In Kharkov they found it.
“Of course I'm angry,” Dennis says. “When we were fighting back for this territory in 2022, we lost thousands of people. We risked our lives.
“And now we're losing people again because someone didn't build a fort.”