Ukrainian forces are trying to wear down Russia’s army and reshape battle lines to create more favourable conditions for a decisive, eastward counteroffensive.
Ukraine’s troops were given a boost of morale last week by an armed rebellion in Russia that posed the most significant threat to president Vladimir Putin’s power in more than two decades.
Yet how the revolt by Wagner Group mercenaries under the command of Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin affects the trajectory of the war remains to be seen.
Ukraine has not yet fully committed elite units and western-trained brigades, signalling to experts and allies that the counteroffensive remains in its early stages.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 30 June 2023.
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/ILW5iqvR7b
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/dVxlihVbhSAdvertisement— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) June 30, 2023
Its recapture of the small village of Neskuchne in the eastern Donetsk region on June 10th encapsulates the opening strategy of the major counteroffensive launched earlier this month.
Small platoons bank on the element of surprise and, when successful, make incremental gains in territory along the 930-mile frontline and battlefield intelligence.
“We had a few scenarios. In the end, I think we chose the best one. To come quietly, unexpectedly,” said Serhii Zherebylo, the 41-year-old deputy commander of the battalion that retook Neskuchne.
One strategy could be to try to split Russia’s forces in two so the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014, is isolated from the rest of the territory it controls.
The infighting in Russia is a major distraction for Russia’s military and political leaders, but experts say the impact on the battlefield so far appears minimal.
For the past four days, Ukraine has stepped up operations around the eastern city of Bakhmut, which Wagner forces seized after months of intense fighting and then handed over to Russian soldiers, who continue to lose some ground on their southern flank.
Along the frontline, however, the strength of the Russian military remains unchanged since the revolt.
It is not clear where Ukraine will try to decisively punch through, but any success will rely on newly formed, western-equipped brigades that are not yet deployed.
For now, Russia’s deeply fortified positions and relative air superiority are slowing Ukraine’s advance.
Military experts say it is hard to say who has the advantage: Russia is dug-in with manpower and ammunition, while Ukraine is versatile, equipped with modern weaponry and clever on the battlefield.
But with the autumn muddy season only four months away, some Ukrainian commanders say they are racing against time.
“Although Ukrainian forces are making small and steady gains, they do not yet have the operational initiative, meaning they are not dictating the tempo and terms of action,” said Dylan Lee Lehrke, an analyst with the British security intelligence firm Janes.
“This has led some observers to claim the counteroffensive is not meeting expectations,” Mr Lehrke said.
But it was never going to resemble Ukraine’s blitzkrieg liberation of the eastern Kharkiv region last year, he said, because ”Russian forces have had too long to prepare fortifications”.
Russian authorities say Ukraine has suffered substantial losses since the start of the counteroffensive — 259 tanks and 790 armoured vehicles, according to Mr Putin, whose claims could not be independently verified.
Grinding battles are being waged in multiple combat zones.
A catastrophic dam collapse last month in the southern Kherson region has altered the geography along the Dnieper River, giving Ukrainians more freedom of movement there.
Russian military bloggers claim a small group of Ukrainian fighters are making gains in the area, although Ukrainian officials have not confirmed these reports.
Across the agricultural plains of the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, Ukrainian troops backed by tanks, artillery and drones appear to be chipping away more decisively against Russian positions.
Ukrainian troops will deal a severe blow to Russian forces if they manage to regain access to the Sea of Azov from this direction, effectively cutting off Moscow’s land bridge to Crimea.
It is too early to determine whether this is a realistic goal.
They are still a long way off.
In an underground command centre on the front, a Ukrainian Special Forces commander with the call sign Hunter stares intently at an aerial view of the lush green battlefield.
His men have just stormed an enemy position but the return fire is constant.
Russians blast rockets into the air while his fighters hide and wait for orders.
Hunter directs the drone operator to shoot.
On the screen, a huge plume of black smoke swells in the air.
A hit, he says.
The battle here will only get harder, analysts say.
Ukrainian troops are still several miles from Russia’s main defensive lines.
Since the launch of The Kremlin’s ‘Special Military Operation’ in February 2022, there has been at least 700 attacks on Ukrainian medical facilities recorded.
🇺🇦#StandWithUkraine🇺🇦pic.twitter.com/8dlZOEH0rQ— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) June 29, 2023
As they penetrate deeper into occupied territory, the fighters will have to contend with Russian defences organised in a diagonal pattern, about six miles deep in some areas, including minefields, anti-tank ditches and pyramid-shaped obstacles known as dragon’s teeth.
And with each advance, they become more vulnerable to Russian air attacks.
At least 50 square miles of land has been regained in the south since the start of the counteroffensive, deputy defence minister Hanna Malyar said this week.
It is not the pace many hoped for.
A US official familiar with Joe Biden’s administration’s thinking said the counteroffensive is a “long slog” testing Ukrainian forces in ways that few other episodes of the 16-month-old war have.
The official, who was not authorised to comment and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said there never was expected to be a “D-Day moment”, but the early going suggests the pace of the counteroffensive will be “tough and challenging” for the Ukrainians.
Unlike some of the earlier battles in the war, in which Russian forces showed little resistance or even fled the battlefield, Ukrainian forces are currently facing stiff resistance, the official said.
In the north east, Russian forces have stepped up offensive operations in the direction of the Kreminna forest near Lyman with the aim of securing a buffer to prevent incursions close to Moscow’s supply lines, Mr Lehrke said.
But it may well have a secondary aim — of forcing more Ukrainian deployments, he said.
The dense forested area has proven to be notoriously difficult terrain.
“The Russians have sabotage groups going into the woods and there have been cases where they enter behind the first line of Ukrainian defences,” said Pavlo Yusov, a press officer with the National Guard’s Thunderstorm brigade, currently in Lyman.
Colonel Volodymyr Silenko, a commander of the 30th Mechanised Brigade operating near Bakhmut, pays no mind to criticism over the pace of attacks.
It is much more important to focus on how the adversary is thinking and responding, he said.
“A war is not a competition of raw force and strength of weapons and people, it’s more about who’s more cunning,” he said.
Colonel Silenko knows the Russians watch his men, the same way he watches theirs – Moscow sees their movements, how they change, how they evolve.
“Our job is to outsmart them,” he said.
Deception has been a key part of Ukraine’s most significant battlefield success to date, last fall’s “Kherson ruse”.
By making it appear that the city of Kherson was the main target of that counteroffensive, Ukrainian forces were able to swiftly retake the northern Kharkiv region.
“That was a master class in deception,” said Mr Lehrke.
“Whether they can do the same this time remains to be seen.”
