Russia has battled back towards the center of Vovchansk, although this came from the northwest direction. After having lost ground yesterday in the northeast, it seems as if Russia's presence in that quadrant of the city has been greatly reduced. However, the push from the northwest provided a new challenge for Ukraine to contend with, particularly as Russian troops are once again approaching the Vovcha river within the city. If Ukraine can stop the Russian push from reaching the river, they should be in pretty good shape to continue squeezing Russian forces out of the city over the next several days to weeks. Key to this will be consolidating control over the northeast, which will reduce supply lines for Russia. Particularly with Ukraine now targeting positions inside of Russia regularly, this will greatly hamper Russian logistics, both on the way to and in the immediate vicinity or Vovchansk.
Russia launched a major crossing attempt of the Siverskyi Donets-Donbas canal, opting to not use one of the preexisting crossing points, which would have funneled their forces and left them very susceptible to Ukrainian attacks. However, crossing the canal at a non designated spot still isn't a particularly easy task, and Russia paid for the attempt. They did manage to get multiple armored vehicles across, and attacked Chasiv Yar behind the canal district. This had the potential to trap the Ukrainian garrison on the wrong sude of the canal, and could have decisively swung the battle in the region in Russia's favor. But Russia's assault failed, with their troops being beaten back across the canal. Russia lost multiple pieces of armor in their attempt. It demonstrates that while the canal is a significant barrier, Ukraine cannot rely on it alone, and they must build additional fortifications and practice vigilance to ensure that Russia cannot mount another similar attempt in the future.
Russian forces have met with more success closer to the city of Donetsk. Geolocated footage west of Netailove has effectively confirmed that Russian troops are now in full control of the settlement. They are pushing beyond, contesting the edge of the village of Karlivka. However, the part being contested is quite isolated and wedged between two rivers. Ukraine has the chance to establish a pretty solid defensive line, either with or without the contested neighborhood or Karlivka.
Zelenskyy is reportedly planning on appearing in France in two days, on the anniversary of D-Day. After his trip to the Philippines, he quietly returned back to Kyiv. This wasn't stated publicly, but was readily apparent from his nightly video address, as the location was his usual one. With the planned trip to France being imminent, he will have only been in Kyiv for a very short amount of time. The Rada just passed a bill regarding the use of English as an official language in Ukraine for international communication. Particularly as key allies such as the United States have shown a reluctance to embrace Ukrainian language programs, this is a way to help cut down on training time in the future, as the United States explicitly cited the language barrier as one of the reasons for the delays with F-16s (though the past almost year or so of delays has been blamed on other issues).
In a bit of a surprise, Germany has expressed confidence that allowing Ukraine to strike inside of Russia is not escalatory. Germany has been a major provider of military aid to Ukraine, but they also drag their feet on political decisions quite regularly (for instance, they are still holding out on providing long range missiles to Ukraine despite several other countries providing them). They also earlier had one of the most restrictive policies towards Ukrainian weapon use on Russian soil, basically copying the American position. With Germany now publicly suggesting that they will open up a larger region of Russia to attacks from Germany weaponry, the United States (which has been publicly debating the issue) will almost certainly follow suit in short order. This will provide Ukraine with the opportunity to potentially prevent an assault on regions such as Kyiv or Sumy before they can be launched, unlike the case in Kharkiv oblast where Ukraine initially needed to wait for Russian troops to cross the border.
Biden today gave a very, very lengthy interview. One soundbite which has picked up a lot of attention was Biden expressing some reluctance at Ukraine joining NATO due to severe corruption, citing his time that he had spent in Ukraine many years ago. In a wider context, he was talking about the reforms thar Ukraine has undertaken since then, but I expect that his comments will be seuzed upon by the Russian media apparatus to paint Ukraine as a particularly corrupt country.