Russia assembles an assault group of nearly 10,000 troops to advance to Borova, southeast of Kharkiv

UKRAINE, June 19 – On the section between Raihorodka and Novovodiane in occupied Luhansk Oblast, Russia gathered up to 10,000 troops and nearly 450 units of military equipment, including 200 artillery systems, to advance on Borova in Kharkiv Oblast, wrote Ukrainian open-source intelligence monitoring site DeepState, which tracks changes on the front line, on June 18. Gwara Media could not independently verify the reports.

Russia launched a new offensive north of Kharkiv Oblast in May to conserve Ukrainian reserves and equipment. The Ukrainian military reported that the front line is now stabilized, but the risk of the Russians opening another attack vector remains.

According to DeepState, Russia’s goal is to first reach the Nadya-Novoyehorivka line and then advance to the Pershotravneve-Cherneshchina line before advancing towards Borova in the Izyum district. OSINT specialists write that Russia has been preparing for the attack for the past three weeks, looking for weak points in the defense of the Russian armed forces in the region.

Borova is a settlement about 27 kilometers southeast of Kharkiv. The Russians occupied Borova in March 2022 and the Ukrainian army liberated it during the Kharkiv counteroffensive.

“(They are conducting) continuous attacks on the positions of the 3rd separate assault brigade,” DeepState wrote, saying that two to four hundred recently mobilized Russian soldiers are heading in that direction every week.

“The flesh attack tactic has not produced any significant results so far, as a strong brigade is stationed in this area. But we stress that the forces are far from equal.”

Serhii Zgurets, CEO of Defense Express, said in an interview with Espresso that Russia wants to control Borova and divide the forces holding positions between Kupiansk and Kreminna into two sections, which would “complicate the logistics of the Ukrainian forces.”

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