Volodymyr Zelensky on the front lines as Moscow continues its advance in eastern Ukraine

Russian forces are particularly seeking to seize the city of Vovchansk, which is still at the heart of fierce fighting. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky went there on Monday to support his soldiers.

Volodymyr Zelensky visited the front in the Kharkiv region (northeast) on Monday, July 29, while Russian troops again claimed to have captured a new village in the Donetsk region (east), thus continuing a slow advance. “Today I had the honour of congratulating our special forces fighters (…) and presenting them with official decorations”Volodymyr Zelensky rejoiced on the social network X, after visiting a forward command post of the army in the Vovchansk area.

On May 10, Russian forces opened a new front by attacking the Kharkiv region from the north. They are particularly seeking to seize the city of Vovchansk, which is still at the heart of fierce fighting and has suffered very heavy destruction, according to drone images from the Ukrainian army.

This attack led kyiv to send reinforcements to this sector, while Ukraine is already seriously short of soldiers due to the very heavy losses accumulated more than two years after the start of the Russian invasion. Ukrainian forces have so far blocked any Russian advance in the Vovchansk sector. The Russian army has also failed to stop the rocket and drone fire towards the Russian region of Belgorod, while this was the Kremlin’s stated objective for this offensive.

But at the same time, Russia continues to gain ground in the Donetsk region, where it has had the initiative since the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the summer of 2023 and the fall of the Avdiivka fortress in February 2024. The attacks of the Russian army, although very costly in terms of soldiers and equipment, are forcing the Ukrainian defenses to buckle in certain sectors. But so far, Moscow has not managed to make a decisive breakthrough.

Several cities in the East are also under Russian fire. In Toretsk, three civilians were killed and three others were wounded, according to the regional governor. Another person died in Grodivka, a town in the Donetsk region. On Monday, the Russian army claimed to have captured yet another small village, Vovche, in the same region. The day before, it had also claimed to have captured two neighboring towns.

In other sectors of this territory, the Russian army is still attacking the strategic Ukrainian city of Chassiv Yar, near Bakhmut. kyiv is suffering from the numerical and material superiority of Moscow, which has more ammunition and uses gliding bombs, which are difficult to counter.