Fierce fighting is taking place around the Ukrainian town of Vovchansk as Kyiv’s troops seek to isolate Russian units that have advanced across the nearby border. Heavy combat is underway at an aggregate plant on the northern edge of Vovchansk, according to military bloggers on both sides of the conflict. One Ukrainian squad commander, Stanislav Buniatov, known as Osman, described the situation in Vovchansk, east of Kharkiv and a few miles from the state border, as “difficult but controlled” and said Russian troops are “surrounded”. “Our guys are not losing their positions, occasionally conducting successful assaults, liberating positions and pushing the enemy back,” Buniatov said in a post on Telegram on Sunday. Russian forces began coming across the border in numbers last month in a multi-pronged assault that the Kremlin said was designed to create a buffer zone that would prevent the Ukrainians from striking Russian cities such as Belgorod. At first…
