Ukraine rolled back 6 months of Russian conquest in 5 weeks, but its push is stalling
In weeks 72 and 73 of the war, Ukraine continued to make minor territorial gains, but it has done away with large-scale assaults and relies on artillery to minimise losses of troops and equipment
Week 72
Ukraine’s counteroffensive “slowed down” visibly in the 72nd week of the war due to entrenched Russian defences. That was the explanation Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave in an interview, but even as he spoke the US was helping to move Ukraine past that obstacle, pledging to give it cluster bombs designed for use against prepared defensive positions.
Other NATO allies meeting in Vilnius on July 11-12 also announced significant new weapons pledges.
Despite the difficulties, Ukrainian forces continued to advance. Ukraine’s general staff said on Monday (10.7) that its forces had seized four square kilometres over the previous week around Bakhmut in the east. That would bring to about 162 sq. km. the territory Ukraine claims to have recaptured since its counteroffensive began on June 4.
But the Washington-based think tank Institute for the Study of War made its own independent assessment of recaptured territory, and believed the figure to be closer to 253 sq. km.
“Russian forces have captured a total of 282 square kilometers in the entire theater since January 1. In five weeks, Ukrainian forces have liberated nearly the same amount of territory that Russian forces captured in over six months,” the ISW said.
A Ukrainian Military intelligence unit commander said Bakhmut, almost completely occupied by Russian forces in early May, was slowly but steadily falling back into Ukrainian hands.
“We are starting to enter those territories that we did not control from the very beginning [of the war],” said Mykola Volokhov, the commander of the intelligence unit "Terra", referring to territory Russia seized in 2014.
The Bakhmut territorial gain appears to have been especially significant. Ukrainian deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said on July 10 that Ukrainian forces had managed to capture key heights over Bakhmut, giving their artillery fire control over Russian positions in the city itself.
“Our defenders have been keeping the entrances, exits and movement of the enemy through the city under fire control for several days,” she wrote on Telegram.
This advance may be related to a reported rout of Russian forces in Klishchiivka, 5km southwest of Bakhmut. Geolocated footage suggested Ukrainian forces had advanced to Klishchivka’s western outskirts on July 6, and this was later confirmed by a Russian military reporter.
Ukrainian forces have been inching closer to the town as they have pushed forward north and south of Bakhmut in an enveloping action.
Ukrainian-Canadian Journalist Alex Roslin said that Russian units had retreated in a disorderly fashion at Klishchiivka on July 7, were suffering from poor morale and were overwhelmed by Ukrainian bombardment.
“A powerful Ukrainian assault forced Russia's 83rd Airborne Assault Brigade to retreat on foot without an evacuation plan, only to be given "illegally issued orders" to go right back to the front, the Russian troops complained in a video appeal,” wrote Roslin.
“Russian draftees in another unit at Klishchiivka - the 142nd Regiment - also refused to fight after suffering heavy losses under Ukrainian fire while being sent into combat without ammunition, their relatives said in an appeal. Some of the refuseniks were reportedly being held in a pit.”
Russian morale was an issue elsewhere on the front as well.
Two Russian sources said Russian chief of staff Valery Gerasimov dismissed Maj.-Gen. Ivan Popov, in command of the 58th Combined Arms Army, after the latter complained that a rotation of his men facing a Ukrainian counteroffensive south of Orikhiv, in western Zaporizia region, was long overdue. The 58th CAA has reportedly been on the front lines since October.
The reports appeared to confirm a suspected Russian lack of strategic reserves.
Wagner off the hook?
That in turn could be related to the apparent leniency with which Wagner Group mercenaries are being treated after a mutiny on June 24.
Under an agreement Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko brokered, Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin would escape treason charges and enjoy amnesty in Belarus. But on July 6, Lukashenko said Prigozhin was no longer on Belarusian soil but in St. Petersburg or Moscow.
Four days later, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Prigozhin and 34 of his commanders had held a three-hour in-person meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin five days after the mutiny.
Putin "gave an assessment of the company's actions at the front during the [special military operation], and also gave his assessment of the events of June 24, listened to the explanations of the commanders and offered them further options for employment," Peskov said.
"They emphasized that they are staunch supporters and soldiers of the head of state and the supreme commander in chief," the Kremlin spokesman said.
The speed with which Putin forgave Wagner suggested to many observers he needed them as effective fighters more than he needed to make examples of them.
A Russian military reporter quoted Wagner commander Anton ‘Lotos’ Yelizarov as saying in an interview that Russian authorities would not prosecute Wagner personnel. Putin had offered Wagner troops a choice between signing contracts with the Russian military or going to camps being built for them in Belarus. Lukashenko said that those camps remained empty, and there were no signs that Wagner troops were signing up with the Russian military, suggesting that Wagner troops remained unmolested in their bases in Russia.
Breaking Russian defences
On the southern front, the Ukrainian general staff said its troops had advanced a total of 8.6 km during the five weeks of the counteroffensive. Two main prongs were aiming to liberate the ports of Berdyansk and Melitopol in Zaporizhia.
Russian defences in this direction were especially strong, Zelenskyy had said in his interview, and he had been in favour of an earlier counteroffensive that didn’t give the Russian forces time to dig in.
Ahead of a NATO summit in Vilnius, the US administration of Joe Biden announced it had decided to supply Ukraine with cluster munitions (Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions). These are controversial, because each shell releases up to hundreds of bomblets that cover a wide area. That makes them ideal against trenches, but because some bomblets fail to explode, they leave hazards for civilians in peacetime.
Carnegie Endowment senior fellow Michael Kofman assessed that DPICMs would greatly enhance Ukraine’s counteroffensive by helping to dislodge Russian defenders from trenches and bridging an artillery shortage.
“While [Ukraine] retains the bulk of its combat power, artillery use rate is likely higher than anticipated, especially as the past weeks have seen a largely attritional approach,” Kofman wrote.
“Consequently, Ukraine's hardest limit is proably not manpower, or equipment, but artillery ammunition. This is foremost about the numbers. Providing DPICM gives access to a sizable stockpile of artillery ammo that can alleviate the time pressure on Ukraine operations.”
Ukrainian defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov said he welcomed the decision, based on Ukrainian assurances to use the weapons only on Ukrainian occupied soil, not against Russia, far from urban centres, in meticulously recorded locations shared with allies and bomb-swept after the war.
Allies promised more weapons in Vilnius. France will reportedly join Britain in sending Storm Shadow missiles with 250km range. Germany would provide two Patriot air defence launchers, 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles and 25 Leopard 1A5 main battle tanks, part of a promised total of 100.
Week 73
A stalemate appeared to descend on the war in its 73rd week, as Ukraine’s counteroffensive made small gains and Russia launched a new offensive of its own.
Ukraine may have attempted to break that stalemate by disrupting Russian arms supplies across the Kerch Bridge, which is the only connection between Russia and the Crimean peninsula.
Russian authorities accused Ukraine of using two naval surface drones to blow up the bridge in the small hours of July 17.
A massive explosion caught on camera left a section of road deck hanging askew over the Black Sea, in what Russia decided to treat as a “terrorist” incident. The sound of guns – apparently those of Russian forces trying to hit the drones – preceded the explosion.
Russian deputy prime minister Mikhail Khusnullin reported to president Vladimir Putin that there was no damage to the supports holding up the road deck, and that the damage was fully reparable by November.
Independent media reported that the only remaining route from Crimea to Russia, via southern Ukraine’s occupied region of Zaporizhia, was clogged with military and civilian traffic.
The independent media outlet Meduza reported an unnamed source close to Ukrainian military intelligence saying Ukraine’s Security Service and Navy were behind the attack. Ukrainska Pravda also carried that story.
Last May, Ukraine’s military intelligence confirmed Kyiv was behind another explosion that sank a section of the bridge’s road deck and damaged a parallel railway line, seven months after it happened.
In retaliation, Russia said it was withdrawing from an agreement allowing the shipment of Ukrainian grain out of the Black Sea, brokered last July by the United Nations and Turkey.
To enforce this, Russia launched an overnight missile strike on Odesa and Chernomorsk, two of the three ports authorised to export grain under the deal, destroying silos and loading equipment.
Ukraine’s agriculture ministry said the strikes destroyed 60,000 tonnes of grain in Chernomorsk. Russia’s defence ministry claimed that thousands of tonnes of fuel oil had been destroyed as well.
“According to experts, it will take at least a year to fully restore the objects that were damaged,” said Ukraine’s agriculture ministry, predicting a global food crisis similar to that in the first five months of the war.
“If we cannot export food, then the population of the poorest countries will be on the verge of survival!" said Ukrainian agriculture minister Mykola Solskyi.
European Commission president Ursula Von Der Leyen condemned Russia’s actions, and said the “EU is working to ensure food security for the world’s vulnerable,” by using rail and barge transport.
Territorial stalemate
More than six weeks into a Ukrainian counteroffensive, neither side seemed to be making significant territorial gains.
Eastern forces spokesman Serhiy Cherevaty said progress in Bakhmut, on the eastern front, was deliberately slow because Ukrainian forces had to contend with extensive minefields. “We conduct detailed and step-by-step planning on how to pass minefields and obstacles,” he said in a telethon.
Souther forces commander Brig. Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi told CNN that “complex and dense minefields” also plagued the southern front. An unnamed Ukrainian official told the Washington Post Kyiv had received less than 15% of the mine-clearing equipment it had asked for. Al Jazeera has previously reported on satellite photography showing kilometres-deep lines of defence Russia had prepared.
On the southern front, Ukraine claimed to have advanced over 1,700 meters towards Melitopol on July 14, and Ukraine’s general staff said their forces were still on the offensive two days later, advancing a kilometre towards Berdyansk. Ukraine has portrayed the two port cities as its main objectives on this front.
On the eastern front Ukraine continued a flanking operation north and south of Bakhmut, hoping to encircle Russian troops in the city, but faced stiff resistance. Ukrainian troops appeared to be pinned down in the northern manoeuvre on July 16, but two days later deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said they had again advanced to capture almost all the dominant heights above the city.
After months of going head-to-head with Ukraine in Bakhmut, Russia succeeded in launching a new offensive in the east. On July 14, they began an advance towards Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region, trying to push Ukrainian forces to the west bank of the Oskil river – a position Russia had held until September. “We are on the defensive,” Hanna Maliar wrote on Telegram. Ukraine’s general staff said its forces were holding their lines of defence.
On July 18, Maliar said Ukrainian troops had retaken the initiative and suggested a logic for Russia’s Kupyansk offensive.
“This is happening in response to our offensive in Bakhmut… in order to stretch our forces so that we cannot concentrate on the area where we are attacking,” Maliar said in a telethon.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed that Russian forces had advanced up to 2km along the front and up to 1.5km in depth in Kupyansk.
The New York Times reported a change in Ukrainian tactics that partly explained the counteroffensive’s slow progress.
Ukrainian forces were focused on wearing down Russian defenders with artillery and long-range missiles instead of large-scale assaults, in an effort to conserve manpower and equipment, the newspaper reported.
The change came after Russia reportedly destroyed a fifth of Ukraine’s Western military kit in the opening two weeks of the counteroffensive, and led to the loss of just 10 percent of the kit in the weeks since.
Insubordination in the Russian command structure
Despite its stout defence, Russia appeared to suffer from insubordination in its top commanders.
A colleague of Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov made his address to his men public, after he was dismissed from the command of the 58th CAA.
Popov had complained about shortcomings on the front facing a Ukrainian counteroffinsive south of Orikhiv, in western Zaporizhia, directly to the chief of the Russian staff, Valery Gerasimov.
Russian military reporters said he complained that his men needed to be rotated because they had been serving on the front lines since October. But Popov revealed other weaknesses as well, in a translation of his remarks by independent news outlet Meduza.
“I didn’t sugarcoat it. I pinpointed the main tragedy of today’s warfare: the lack of counterbattery fire, the lack of artillery reconnaissance stations, and the mass death and mutilation of all our brothers by enemy artillery,” Popov was reported as having said, suggesting that Ukraine’s counteroffensive was taking a serious toll on Russian lives.
A series of senior commander dismissals led to speculation among Russian sources on July 15 that the Russian defence ministry may be preparing to arrest Airborne Forces (VDV) Commander Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky.
Russian military reporters posted an audio excerpt the following day, purporting to be elements of the 7th VDV Division threatening to withdraw from their positions in occupied Kherson if the Russian defence establishment arrested Teplinsky.
The dismissal of Popov and speculation over Teplinsky came after the Wagner mercenary group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin mutinied against the defence ministry command on June 24.
“Popov’s… Teplinsky’s and… Prigozhin’s challenges to [chief of staff Valery] Gerasimov’s and [defence minister Sergei] Shoigu’s authority have established a precedent for insubordination that can hollow out support for the Russian military command among senior officers,” said the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, a think tank.