Ukraine’s biggest offensive of the war to date pushed back 70 kilometers to the front line in a week, claimed the Kupyansk logistics hub and set its sights on the Izyum military headquarters. A flash offensive in the northeast of the country could result in the capture of thousands of Russian troops.
“Kupyansk is Ukraine. . . Glory to the armed forces of Ukraine! ” Natalia Popova, an adviser to the Kupyansk city council, wrote on Facebook on Saturday.
The town lies on Russian supply lines to the Donbas region, a largely Russian-occupied territory. Its capture on Friday night provided momentum for Ukrainian forces to encircle and capture a significant number of Russian forces further south at Izyum.
“This is a start, a good start,” said Denys Shmyhal, the prime minister of Ukraine. “The morale is very high.”
The success of the counter-offensive gave the Ukrainian forces a tactical and moral boost and demonstrated their capabilities to their Western allies.
“Izyum will be under Ukrainian control within the next few hours. The Russians escaped and left behind weapons and ammunition. The city center is free,” said Taras Berezovets, a press officer with the Bohun Brigade of Ukraine’s special forces.
Videos posted on social media showed Russian soldiers who appeared to be bedridden hastily leaving their vehicles and positions, leaving equipment and food scattered around their positions. Locals cheered on Ukrainian forces as they advanced through liberated villages.
The Russian Defense Ministry issued a rare statement on Saturday acknowledging the pullback from Balakliia and Izyum, but describing it as a move to focus attention on another frontline area, rather than one. failed after a major Ukrainian counterattack.
“To achieve the goals. . . Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said it had decided to regroup the Russian troops stationed in the Balakliia and Izyum regions, to intensify efforts in the direction of Donetsk.
In the end, he said, “an operation was conducted for three days to knock down and transfer” the Russian troops stationed in that area and bring them to the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic.
Kyiv launched the offensive earlier this week, taking advantage of Russian defenses that were decimated after troops were sent south to fend off a Ukrainian offensive around Kherson. Up to 10,000 Russian troops may have been captured during the Kharkiv maneuver, Lawrence Freedman, professor emeritus of war studies at King’s College London, estimates.
“I believe a few more successes. . . and the Russian army will flee,” Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said in an interview published Saturday with the RBK-Ukraine news agency.
“And they will, believe me, because today we are destroying their logistics chains, warehouses, etc. . . It will be like an avalanche, a defense will shake and it will collapse,” he added.
Nataliya Humenyuk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian armed forces on the southern front near Kherson, on Saturday said government troops there were also making significant gains. She said: “There was an advance of our troops along the southern front along many sections from two to several tens of kilometers.
Russian President Vladimir Putin convened a meeting of the security council on Friday, but spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin had no comment afterwards and referred all questions to the Defense Ministry, the agency said. Russian Tass news reported.
Military analysts say Ukraine launched two near-simultaneous attacks to overwhelm the Russian military’s centralized command system, which has struggled with multi-pronged deployments.
“Russian generals are afraid of making mistakes. . . leads to centralization of decision making, because everyone tries to push decisions as high as possible to avoid responsibility. That kills their ability to deal with multi-pronged approaches,” said Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine’s former defense minister.
“So that is exactly what our armed forces are doing. . . He told participants at the Yalta European Strategy conference in Kyiv this weekend.
The success of the Ukraine offensive so far has led one of the military commentators attached to the Russian military to describe it as a “disaster” and “Russia’s biggest military defeat since 1943”.
However, analysts warn against reading too much into Ukraine’s early successes, because of its oversupply, adding that it would be a mistake to underestimate the Russian military’s capabilities.
To the south, the Kherson offensive was facing stiffer resistance and is believed to have taken heavy casualties as its forces confronted well-equipped and trained Russian positions. .
“Surname [the Russians] Very good at electronic warfare. They have very good cannons. They have a few high-tech weapons. . . So you have to be careful. You always have to respect your opponent,” said General Wesley Clarke, a former NATO supreme commander.
Russia is said to have sent more troops. The Ukrainian General Staff said 1,200 Chechen troops were deployed to strengthen Russian positions around Kherson. Videos posted on social media on Saturday are also said to show Russian military helicopters transporting new troops to reinforce Izyum.
