Ukrainian forces have opened their autumn counteroffensive in the far north with an armoured assault on the Russian-held village of Vilkhuvatka in the Kharkiv region, sending two heavily armoured tanks into the settlement under a drone escort in a bid to break a fortified Russian foothold against the international border.
Tanks roll into Vilkhuvatka under a drone umbrella
Geolocated footage published by the Ukrainian military analysis channel RFU shows two Ukrainian tanks fitted with additional armour advancing into Vilkhuvatka, which Russian forces control on the northeastern Kharkiv front. The extra armour echoes the "turtle tank" designs seen on both sides of the war, but RFU reports the vehicles showed no loss of manoeuvrability despite the added weight.
The column did not move alone. Reconnaissance drones with high-resolution cameras guided the tanks around hazards on the approach road, compensating for the reduced situational awareness the armour imposes on the crews, while heavy Vampire bomber drones loitered overhead ready to strike any Russian ambush. On the way in, the tanks rolled over several light mines that failed to damage them.
Reaching the Russian line, the tanks took up firing positions and dismantled the strongpoints guarding the entrance to the village, according to RFU, before withdrawing toward Ukrainian positions. Russian drone operators launched kamikaze drones at the retreating vehicles, but the outer armour layer — designed specifically to defeat such strikes — shrugged off the hits, and both tanks returned safely. RFU says the assault allowed Ukrainian infantry clearing groups to move into parts of the grey zone leading to the settlement, though it notes that any insertion of forces directly into Vilkhuvatka itself has not been shown, and the outcome has not been independently confirmed.
Why Moscow's border foothold had to be broken
The assault struck the eastern flank of a Russian pincer effort in Ukraine's northern Kharkiv region, where Moscow's forces have been trying to encircle Ukrainian defenders against the international border before pushing south between the Siverskyi Donets and Oskil rivers. Ukrainian forces had already broken the tip of the Russian spearhead on that flank, blunting the immediate encirclement threat, but Russian troops closer to the border had dug into a chain of villages and forests on the Ukrainian side.
Leaving that fortified salient intact would have invited Moscow to try the encirclement again. Kyiv's answer was a shock armoured attack for which, RFU says, the Russian line was not prepared — the defenders had not organised their positions against a tank-led breakthrough, allowing the armour to punch a hole for infantry to exploit.
A sector of competing claims
The ground around Vilkhuvatka, northeast of Velykyi Burluk, has been contested for months. The Institute for the Study of War, citing geolocated footage published on September 19, assessed that Ukrainian forces maintain positions west of Vilkhuvatka — an indication, the institute noted, that they hold ground there contrary to Russian claims. Russia's defence ministry, for its part, claims its "North" grouping has seized the settlements of Nesterne and Rublenoye elsewhere in the Kharkiv border sector; like the Vilkhuvatka assault itself, Moscow's claim has not been independently verified.
What is clear is the direction of travel. After a September in which Russia lost a record number of troops for negligible net gains, Ukraine is now choosing the points of attack — at Lyman under Operation Vivaldi, and now with armour at the northern border. Moscow's hope of a decisive northern breakthrough before the end of the year is, on the available evidence, receding rather than approaching.
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