“Steady, deliberate” Ukrainian advance meets “crazy” Russian resistance
Week 71 of the Ukraine war: Ukraine says it is doing valiantly given its lack of air power and limited resources
Just over a month into its counteroffensive, Ukraine continued to make incremental advances and claimed to be eroding Russian forces’ ability to fight back.
Deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said on July 3 that Ukrainian forces had recaptured 28.4 square kilometres of territory in the previous week, bringing the counteroffensive’s total gains to 158 sq km.
The Ukrainian army was “advancing steadily, deliberately working its way through very difficult minefields... 500m a day, 1,000m a day, 2,000m a day, that kind of thing,” US chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley told the National Press Club in Washington on June 30. He estimated the counteroffensive could take as many as 10 weeks.
Defence minister Sergei Shoigu said Russian forces had destroyed 2,500 pieces of Ukrainian equipment since the counteroffensive began on June 4. “Overall, neither of the enemy’s goals in either direction has been met,” said Shoigu during a speech at the defence ministry. “This confirms the prowess of Russian warriors and the obviously inflated hopes for the acclaimed Western armaments.”
There was no independent verification of either Russian or Ukrainian figures, but Ukrainian officials insisted that territorial gains were not the priority at this stage.
Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council Oleksiy Danilov described “the number one task” of the armed forces as “the maximum destruction of manpower, equipment, fuel depots, armored vehicles, command posts, artillery, and air defense forces of the Russian army," in a Twitter post. These are softening operations in advance of a major attack, say military experts, and they reflect the tactics Ukraine employed ahead of major advances in September last year.
Ukrainian commander of the armed forces Valery Zaluzhny told the Washington Post he was “pissed off” by those who complained about the slow pace of the counteroffensive.
“This is not a show,” Zaluzhny said. “It's not a show the whole world is watching and betting on or anything. Every day, every meter is given by blood.”
The counteroffensive would be both faster and more effective if it had been accompanied by mastery of the air, he said, referring to Western allies’ reluctance to provide F-16 planes in a timely manner.
He also said his forces were outgunned – sometimes ten-to-one – because of ammunition shortages.
Throughout the 71st week of the war, the main action was concentrated in specific battles. On the eastern front, Russia and Ukraine launched offensives and counteroffensives in the areas of Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Marinka, all in the Donetsk region.
On the southern front, Ukraine claimed to be making progress in at least two areas – south of Orikhiv, in western Zaporizhia, and on the Zaporizhia-Donetsk administrative border.
The east
Bakhmut remained of especial importance to both sides. Russia occupied most of the town in early June, after fighting for it for a year. Ukraine has since been engaged in an attempt to retake the city by flanking it to the north and south.
On June 28, Ukraine’s general staff said their forces had seized “a strategic initiative and are leading a broad offensive action,” forcing Russians out of captured positions.
Deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar reported advances of 1,200 metres towards Klishchiivka and 1,500 metres towards Kurdyumivka, both south of Bakhmut.
Maliar said Ukrainian troops still controlled the southwestern outskirts of Bakhmut, but the heaviest fighting was now around the city. “The offensive is proceeding in several directions and our troops are advancing everywhere,” she said during a telethon.
Russia responded by moving elite troops to Bakhmut. Ukraine’s eastern forces spokesman Col. Serhiy Cherevaty said a Russian airborne forces regiment had been transferred to Bakhmut from Lyman.
Ukraine’s general staff said it was still “kicking out” Russian forces from their positions around Bakhmut on July 3. “The opponent is doing crazy resistance and suffers huge losses. Some tough fighting going on here,” the staff said.
Serhiy Cherevaty said in a telethon on July 1 that of the 180,000 Russian troops on the eastern front, the best 50,000 were defending Bakhmut, armed with more than 300 tanks, 330 artillery pieces and 140 multiple launch rocket systems. “For them, the city is not only of military importance, but also of information and propaganda,” he said.
Russia’s defence ministry said it had repelled all Ukrainian attacks on the eastern front, near Bakhmut and Lyman.
The south
Ukraine’s general staff said on June 29 that its counteroffensive in Zaporizhia met with “partial success” on the two main fronts: south of Orikhiv, in the western part of the region, and in Levadne-Priutne, on the Zaporizhia-Donetsk administrative border.
“We are destroying the enemy in the Zaporizhzhia and Melitopol directions. The enemy is pulling up all its reserves for defense, even a marine brigade that at one time fled from Kherson," said deputy defense minister Hanna Maliar. She said Ukrainian troops had advanced 1,300 metres towards Berdyansk.
“Russian sources are increasingly claiming that Ukrainian forces are currently conducting assaults in southern Ukraine with smaller infantry groups and fewer armored vehicles than during earlier counteroffensive operations,” wrote the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, a think tank.
One of those sources described Ukrainian tacrics: “Now the enemy is acting in relays, using small assault groups in waves. As soon as one unit runs out of steam, a new unit takes its place.”
“These claims about Ukrainian operations suggest that Ukrainian forces are not currently attempting the kind of large-scale operations that would result in rapid territorial advances. Ukrainian officials have routinely indicated that Ukrainian forces have yet to commit a substantial portion of their forces to counteroffensive operations and have yet to launch the main phase of the counteroffensive,” said the ISW.
Ukraine started its counteroffensive with mechanised units, but appeared to have returned to the guerrilla tactics it employed early in the war after sustaining highly-publicised losses of tanks and armoured fighting vehicles in June. Russian drones were able to ferret out armoured columns and guide artillery strikes against them.
However, those guerrilla tactics weren’t always successful. Russian occupation governor of Kherson Vladimir Saldo claimed on July 1 that a bridgehead of a few dozen Ukrainian troops had been cleared from the eastern side of the Antonivsky bridge in an overnight special forces operation. He said there were no further Ukrainian bridgeheads on the left bank of the Dnipro river. “The destruction of the [Ukrainian] units that landed on Antonovsky Island in the Antonovsky Bridge area has been completed,” said the Russian defence ministry on July 3.
Ukraine indirectly confirmed increased Russian activity on the Dnipro.
Russian forces were stepping up artillery attacks and air strikes against the right bank of the Dnipro from the Kinburn Spit, said Natalia Humenyuk, spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern forces. The aim was to distract Ukraine’s forces from their efforts to cross the river to the left bank, she said.
Humenyuk said Russian forces had returned to positions they had retreated from after the Kakhovka dam flooded them, and were launching reconnaissance patrols across the river to spy on Ukrainian activities. In just one day, she said, Ukrainian forces had sunk two boats with 66 Russian troops in the Mykolaiv area.
Nuclear threat?
Ukraine has warned for several weeks that Russia was preparing to create a nuclear contamination incident at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, where it maintains about 5,000 troops.
On July 4, Ukraine’s general staff made an official announcement of an imminent provocation at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. “According to operational information, today, outside objects resembling explosive devices were placed on the outer roofs of the third and fourth power units of the [power plant],” the staff said. The goal of this sabotage was not necessarily to damage the reactors, but to make it look as if Ukraine had shelled the plant, the staff said. “It is important that all Ukrainians are morally prepared for the detonation of the ZNPP, as well as trained in how to act in any situation. We simply have no other way out,” said deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar in a telethon. Ukrainian armed forces chief Valery Zaluzhny was co-ordinating information exchanges with energy authorities “in order to analyze, plan and predict the possible development scenarios of events at the Zaporizhzhya Atomic stations.”
Ukrainian military intelligence reported on June 30 that Russian managers at the facility were gradually being evacuated, and Ukrainian employees who had signed contracts with Rosatom were advised to leave by July 5.