Kovel (Ukrainian: Ковель, IPA: [ˈkɔwelʲ] ⓘ; Polish: Kowel; Yiddish: קאוולע / קאוולי) is a city in Volyn Oblast, northwestern Ukraine.

During the First World War, the city was a site of the Battle of Kowel between the Central Powers and the Russian Empire.

[7] The Poles won the battle, capturing a large amount of weapons and military equipment, including two armored trains and 26 cannons.

The area had a large presence of the Communist Party of Western Ukraine, and thus the Red Army was generally greeted as liberators.

[8] Subsequently, in 1941 Operation Barbarossa the Germans having conquered the town on 28 June 1941 murdered 18,000 Jews in Kovel, mostly during August and September 1942.

[9] About 8,000 Jews were murdered in the forest near Bakhiv on 19 August 1942 during the liquidation of the Kovel ghetto, established on 25 May 1942.

Jewish victims were driven by train from Kovel to Bakhiv where pits were dug close to the railroads.

[10][11] In March and April 1944 during the Soviet Polesskoe offensive, Kovel was a site of fierce fighting between the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking and the Red Army.

In that period, Ukrainian nationalists murdered approximately 3,700 Polish inhabitants of Kovel county.