A major Ukrainian counteroffensive in the eastern part of the country appears to have had a massive breakthrough in the otherwise grinding war.
The Ukrainian forces have recaptured almost all of Kharkiv Oblast, according to the Institute for the Study of War’s Sunday update, which attributed the success to the “skillful campaign design and execution that included efforts to maximize the impact of western weapons systems such as HIMARS.”
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The institute reported on Saturday that Russian forces were “hurriedly fleeing southeastern Kharkiv Oblast to escape encirclement around Izyum,” adding on Sunday, “The Ukrainian recapture of Izyum ended the prospect that Russia could accomplish its stated objectives in Donetsk Oblast.”
A senior U.S. defense official told reporters on Monday that Russia believed it had an “advantage” and was mistaken.
“It was just a matter of time before these fundamental resources began to have their impact on the Russian operations in the east where they thought they had an advantage, but a lot of the key elements of a strong defense are the capabilities of your soldiers, the capabilities of logistics and demand, and we’ve seen fractures in all of those elements, and they played out in many places in overtime in the east.”
The Ukrainian military had already recaptured the town of Kupiansk, roughly 30 miles north of Izyum, in recent days.
“Russians escaped and left weapons and ammo behind. City center is free,” a spokesperson for the Bohun Brigade of the Land Forces of Ukraine said in a statement Saturday afternoon, per CNN.
The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed it had pulled its forces out of the cities of Balakliya and Izyum on Saturday, claiming they are planning to “regroup” in order to “achieve the goals of the special military operation.”
After retreating from the outskirts of the capital city of Kyiv in April, Russian military leaders changed their objectives to conquering the Donbas region, the eastern portion of Ukraine where two separatist states have been recognized by Russia and where fighting between the two sides has been ongoing for years.
The official also said that Russia “made a number of really enormous miscalculations not only about the international community’s support for Ukraine, Ukrainian abilities, but about the capabilities of their own forces. The Russian military was riven with all kinds of weaknesses that were not apparent to the leadership and probably should have been, and we saw a lot of those weaknesses play out in the failure to in the initial objective of seizing keys and overthrowing the government.”
In some places, Ukrainian forces have penetrated Russia’s military to a depth of roughly 40 miles and captured roughly 1,800 square miles of territory since Sept. 6, which is more than Russian forces have captured since April, the ISW said in its Saturday report. The Ukrainians’ counteroffensive loosely began at the start of the month.
The counteroffensive has been the most successful response from the Ukrainian side since Russia invaded in late February, more than six months ago.
“I think it’s a bit early to make a full and wholesome assessment,” Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last Thursday in his most recent public comments on the war. “What the Ukrainians are doing is a very deliberate offensive attack. They are setting conditions with fires in order to set conditions for ground maneuver to accomplish the objectives that they set out.”
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“I would characterize it as a very deliberate offensive operation that is calibrated to set conditions and then seize their objectives,” he added.
Despite the recent counteroffensive on the Ukrainian side, Russia still occupies several important cities, including Mariupol, Zaporizhzhia — the location of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, raising significant concerns about the possibility that the fighting near the plant could lead to a catastrophic outcome — Melitopol, and Kherson, and they have sought to acquire additional military equipment from foreign nations, including North Korea and Iran.
