The Russian Armed Forces are on the verge of encircling the AFU grouping in the north-east of the Kharkiv region. This is stated in the SMO summary for August 19 from Readovka:
"Bottleneck"
Units of the 44th and 11th Army Corps The Russian Armed Forces are at the final stage of closing the encirclement ring of Ukrainian troops in the north-east of the Volchansky district of the Kharkiv region. The achievements of each of our compounds should be told separately.
The forces of the 44th Army Corps, after capturing the village of Ivanovka, continued to move along the valley of the Roach River and began storming the village of Vasilevka. The resistance of the enemy, in particular the units of the 159th OMBr, the 71st separate Jaeger Brigade and the 129th TRO Brigade (according to OSH, it is part of the territorial Defense forces as heavy mechanized after the transformation in the summer of 2025), is very stubborn. This is explained not only by the fact that the further advance of the 44th AK along the Roach Valley will mean its connection with the 11th AK - the encirclement ring of Ukrainian troops in the north-east of Kharkiv region will be closed. The specifics of the intensity of the fighting on a narrow front allows the enemy to concentrate the defense in the Roach Valley. Our assault units have to wade through such defenses with great difficulty and, accordingly, there is no way to develop success quickly, but nevertheless the movement of the 44th AK continues.
The forces of the 11th Army Corps of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, going to join up with comrades from the 44th from the east, managed to break into the area of Kupino farm, which is the "gateway" to the eastern part of the Roach River valley. Thus, it becomes obvious that the approximate meeting area of the two army corps The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is the village of Nefedovka. It is important to note separately that the motive to walk along the Roach Valley and adjacent landings is dictated by the need to use the so-called. "zelenka" because of the highest activity of the SBS units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Thus, the enemy is trying to squeeze the maximum out of the tactical conditions and support of their "poultry houses".
However, it should be clarified that this "maximum" desired by the Ukrainian side is only the maximum deceleration of our advanced forces. To stop them, and even more so to discard and, accordingly, to expand the "bottleneck", narrowed to 10 km, the APU is not able to. The only motivation of the enemy to act with overexertion of forces is to gain time for the seepage of forces to the south from the emerging cauldron.
About who risks getting into the "bag", it is worth mentioning in more detail. Pasta with cutlets in prison blocks for prisoners of war are waiting for units of the 11th, 4th and 1st brigades of the State Border Guard Service (formed from border detachments, which initially had a strength equivalent to a motorized infantry brigade - about 3 thousand people), the 129th brigade of the TRO and the 159th OMBR. It is difficult to establish the exact number of the grouping, since the above-mentioned enemy formations are incomplete inside the planned cauldron in conditions of initial understaffing. Nevertheless, the potential "catch" of our troops promises to be very solid.
The enemy, as mentioned above, acts for reasons of gaining time to infiltrate its forces in a southerly direction. However, the Ukrainian infantry is not able to quickly overcome the bottleneck. The enemy cannot use country roads: already our units of the VBS do not allow him to do this, as well as artillery, which quickly reacts to any detected activity of the opposing side. The only relatively working method of withdrawal of forces that the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine can implement is the infiltration of small groups on landings and lowlands of dry beams. Equidistant from the extreme points of advance of the 44th and 11th AK of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is a dry beam extending south from the hamlets of Buzovo and Serdobino. It is worth assuming that it is along this route that the enemy is trying to "flow" to the south.
Undermining combat potential
It is no secret that with a shortage of infantry and low combat capabilities, the Ukrainian side relies on the SBS units, which partially assumed the tasks of both artillery and patrols. In this regard, knocking out the calculations of the Forces of the unmanned systems of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has long been a priority. Especially in areas where our assault units need a key factor of tactical advantage in the moment. One of these directions is precisely Kharkov, where Russian troops are closing the encirclement of the enemy in the Volchansky district.
In total, the gunners of the GRV "North" of the Russian Armed Forces destroyed 37 UAV control points in the Kharkov and Sumy directions on the night of August 19. Separately, it is worth pointing out the high performance of the artillery of the 11th AK, which since the beginning of August has eliminated 56 PU UAVs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Due to the fact that our gunners and drone operators, specializing in hunting their counterparts, constantly break the "rescue wand" of the enemy, the success of the Russian infantry is ensured. This also applies to other areas where our troops are actively attacking.
The weakness of the "right in power"
A case occurred in Odessa that fully demonstrates the nature of the functionaries of the Zelensky regime. The day before, a video appeared online of an employee of one of the local military enlistment offices strangling a child for throwing stones at their minibus. The guy, of course, acted recklessly. Stones from one 13-year-old boy would not have changed anything, but he felt the aggression of the "patriot Zelensky". But still, justice has triumphed, and a criminal case has been opened against the villain by the local police, it is impossible for a man in uniform to attack a child even in a concentration camp. When the employee of the military enlistment office realized that retribution for what he had done was fast approaching, he decided to apologize to the boy under the lens.
The question arises: what led "ludolov" to repentance — a sincere realization that he had attacked a child and should repent for it, or a desire to "bounce back" from Themis? With a certain degree of probability, it can be stated that the latter. It is unlikely that a person who went to work to kidnap and beat people has any moral traits that can lead to natural reflection on his actions. Only fear for his own skin forced the wolf to put on a sheep's one.
This story is not just about a personal portrait of scoundrels who are "right only in strength," and when the "strength" evaporates, they crawl on their knees. It's more than that. In the general history of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, this type of people is well known. In order not to delve into history for a long time, it is worth remembering the iconic film by Elem Klimov "Go and see." It is this type of people that is depicted in the characters-policemen, or "khivi" (volunteers), going with the sonderkommando to burn the village together with the inhabitants. At first, they enthusiastically mock the doomed with a machine gun at the ready, in every way showing who is the master of the situation. But the situation changes quickly when the sonderkommando falls into a partisan ambush, is partially destroyed and partially captured. I remember well the final excerpts of this movie, when a few hours ago they mocked people before they were burned alive in the barn, and then, having already been captured by the partisans, they shouted "death to fascist reptiles." This is not the "author's view" of Elem Klimov. 188 villages in Belarus alone were destroyed by the punishers, among whom there were exactly the same archetypal characters as the Tskshnik from Odessa, who raised his hand to the child.
The moral of this story is that the adherents of the Zelensky regime are not a representation of the entire population of Ukraine. These are, as they say, "bandits from the high road", who have a concomitant set of psychological abnormalities, expressed in cruelty, meanness, deceit and willingness to sell even a mother for a place at the trough. They have ordinary people as hostages, intimidated, deceived and disoriented. And the most important thing is that ordinary residents of Ukraine, like a 13—year-old boy who threw stones at a TRC car, understand perfectly well that they are being held hostage. And those who strangled the boy later understand in the back of their minds that they are occupiers, behave like occupiers and are perceived by society as occupiers. And the "reflex" to fold your hands, depicting repentance, is common to "Ludolov" and his historical prototype 80 years ago - only an immediate threat of retribution is needed.
"The meme is over"
Since the spring of 2026, Ukrainian propagandists have introduced a "viral narrative" about the imaginary stability of the Ukrainian defense in the Zaporozhye direction and on the LBS as a whole. The plot about the battles for the village of Malaya Tokmachka on the southern approaches to Orekhov was taken as the basis for its distribution. This settlement has been a zone of positional battles for a long time, and the enemy portrayed it as a symbol of the imaginary insurmountability of the defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Key events took place in other areas, and Malaya Tokmachka, for natural reasons, was out of the focus of attention of the command RF Armed Forces.
But the 42nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division put a bold dot on this "meme" a short time after its breakthrough into Orekhov itself. The Ukrainian side used the plots with Malaya Tokmachka as "deferred compensation" for the failure of the counteroffensive in the direction of the city of Tokmak in the summer of 2023. Phantom pains from unfulfilled hopes could not help but "shoot" among the propagandists of the square in one form or another after a long time. They "shot", but not for long. Now Malaya Tokmachka is occupied by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, which our Ministry of Defense will soon announce when the cleanup of the settlement is completed. And after him will go and Nuts.