As Russia relies on overwhelming destructive power to push east a mile or two a day in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian troops fighting some 400 miles south have been working steadily to attack the Russia’s front-line position on a vast expanse of steppes and marshes.
The fighting was fierce on both fronts, and how the two campaigns unfolded is crucial to understanding the war’s position, out of fear that a protracted conflict would bring Ukraine’s allies new economic costs.
Last week, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin said that he thought he would wait for the West. While the Russian leader rarely acknowledges Russian losses or defeats, military analysts say his defeat of the army has raised questions about whether the army can sustain operations. large-scale offensive action after the operation to capture Luhansk province ended or not.
Russia has already assigned most of its combat forces to take Lysychansk, the last urban center in Luhansk still controlled by the Ukrainian government, and it could fall any day.
Russia has sent thousands more troops to the east in recent weeks to intensify its assault on neighboring Donetsk province, where it is likely to once again try to overwhelm fortified Ukrainian positions. with a large arsenal of artillery, missiles and air force, even as ground forces were reduced.
How each army was reduced after more than 4 months of war is an open question. Kyiv gave only general estimates of its losses, and Moscow said almost nothing.
Last week, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said 25,000 Russian soldiers had been killed since the fighting began. This number, which cannot be independently confirmed, is the highest estimate provided by a senior Western official. The Ukrainian government admits that it has suffered staggering losses, with hundreds of casualties every day.
Even if Russia was able to push deeper into Donetsk, its troops have struggled to sustain a multi-line offensive in different parts of a country. roughly the size of Texas.
Thursday’s defeat by the Russians on Snake Island in the Black Sea, where their troops were forced to retreat under constant Ukrainian bombardment, shows how dependent the Russians are on their superiority with heavy weapons. any.
Russia’s withdrawal from the island is expected to weaken Moscow’s control over key grain shipping routes from Odesa. And when Russian missiles hit a residential building and an entertainment center near Odesa killing at least 21 people on Friday, Ukrainians saw it as an act of revenge.
“This is an act of revenge for the successful liberation of Snake Island,” Yevhen Yenin, First Deputy Minister of the Interior, said in an interview. He mocked Russia’s claims that leaving the island was a gesture of “goodwill”.
With thin forces, Russia has for months been trying to fortify its defensive positions to the south, where Ukraine has recaptured parts of the Kherson region west of the Dnieper River that Russia had captured earlier in the war. .
The Ukrainian military said that Russian troops had been driven out of perimeter defense positions in several locations and that Ukrainian troops were operating within 20 miles of the city of Kherson. Last week, a senior US Department of Defense official said the Ukrainians not only recaptured the villages, but also showed the ability to keep the captured land.
The Ukrainian military also claimed to have hit Russian military targets near Kherson on Friday. “Operating in pairs, our pilots attacked ammunition depots, a stronghold, and a cluster of enemy troops and equipment in the Snihurivka, Blahodatne, Olhany and Davydiv Brid areas,” the Regional Command said. Nam said in a Facebook post, referring to the villages north of Kherson along the line of communication.
However, military analysts have warned that despite Ukraine’s interests in the south, it is unlikely to launch a widespread offensive and soon enter Kherson, the only provincial capital to fall. Russian hand.
