On Thursday, Ukrainian forces carried out a significant attack in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia against the invading Russians, launching multiple assaults against Russian forces in both the south and east. While there is no clear indication of the outcome yet, the operation carries high stakes for Kyiv and its Western allies.
According to three senior U.S. officials and military analysts, this attack marks a long-awaited major Ukrainian counteroffensive. After months of training and mobilizing new units, Ukraine is now deploying advanced Western weapons, including German Leopard tanks and American Bradley fighting vehicles, in combat.
“It appears some of the new brigades Ukraine stood up for this counteroffensive have been committed, which indicates the counteroffensive is underway,” said Rob Lee, a senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “Ukrainian forces have made some tactical gains and sustained losses.”
The United States and other allies trained and equipped the nine brigades designed to retake Russian-occupied land, with Ukraine is expected to launch a multi-pronged assault, concentrating on swathes of the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions. The operation will focus on specific areas, breaking through Russian lines in an attempt to recapture lost territory, but can adapt to the most successful areas of the assault, the US officials said.
Meanwhile, Russia and pro-Kremlin bloggers have claimed that Moscow’s forces have repulsed Ukrainian assaults. Ukraine, however, has said little about the intensifying clashes along the front line, neither confirming nor denying Russia’s claims. Since Ukraine does not discuss military losses, details of such may remain confidential.
Russian bloggers are a major source of information from the front lines. They have reported that Ukraine’s forces suffered heavy losses. However, such claims may be exaggerated and are often difficult to confirm independently. Two senior U.S. officials confirmed that Ukrainian troops suffered casualties during the initial fighting but could not quantify the losses as assessments were still being made.
For months, Russian forces have built a network of defenses, and the table-flat terrain, with little cover along much of the southern front, leaves any advancing force of troops or armored vehicles vulnerable to enemy artillery.
Recent reports highlight that Ukrainian forces launched attacks in the eastern Donetsk region. The evidence for a counteroffensive grew on Thursday, but it is unclear whether this marks a prelude to an even more significant push. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, their forces thwarted a Ukrainian attack in the Zaporizhzhia region, near Novodarivka. Nevertheless, a Ukrainian deputy defense minister, Hanna Malyar, said that fighting was underway in the area of a larger town about 10 miles away in the neighboring Donetsk region, Velyka Novosilka. It remains unclear if this is the same clash noted by the Russians. A map released by the British Defense Ministry marked that general area as the location of an alleged Ukrainian advance.
Sergei K. Shoigu, the Russian defense minister, said that the 47th Mechanized Brigade of Ukrainian forces, including dozens of armored vehicles, attempted to break through Russia’s defense in the same area. However, Moscow’s air and ground forces quickly repelled the strike. This brigade is among those that have undergone training and received advanced equipment from the United States.
Videos verified by The New York Times showed a Ukrainian armored vehicle near Velyka Novosilka hitting a landmine. Heavy fighting also occurred farther west in the Zaporizhzhia region, near the town of Orikhiv, where Ms. Malyar said that “the enemy is actively on the defensive.” Russian bloggers reported that the Ukrainians unsuccessfully attempted an advance near the village of Mala Tokmachka, east of Orikhiv. In addition, they posted videos and photos displaying damaged and destroyed German Leopard tanks and American-made fighting vehicles.
Approximately 120 miles away, there were also reports of heavy fighting in the area around the city of Bakhmut, the longest and deadliest battle of the war. Ms. Malyar commented that Bakhmut “remains at the epicenter where we have gone from defense to offensive” and that “we destroy a lot of enemy manpower” there. However, Russian bloggers indicated that defenses were holding, aided by sustained strikes by the Russian Air Force.
Western allies supplied billions of dollars worth of weapons to give Ukraine the ability to combat the invading force. They quickly trained and equipped nine of the 12 newly formed brigades expected to take part in the fighting, alongside other Ukrainian units.
Despite the success so far, there is no guarantee of continued Western support in the long term. For instance, the US budget for military assistance is expected to run out in September, and some Republicans in Congress have questioned the justification for it.
If Ukraine fails to break through Russia’s mine belts, tank traps, and trench lines, its forces may not garner enough support to continue the fight, putting pressure on Kyiv to negotiate with Moscow and freeze the conflict, leaving Russia’s territorial gains entrenched. The destruction of the Kakhovka dam earlier this week, which caused widespread flooding along the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, complicates matters for both sides. Ukrainian officials, however, have said that the floods will have little effect on the battlefield. The floods will make a military crossing of the Dnipro more challenging, but Ukrainian officials say that such an attack was not in their plans.
This report was contributed to by Christiaan Triebert, Christoph Koettl, Ivan Nechepurenko, Marc Santora, and Anatoly Kurmanaev.
