Ukraine steps up counteroffensive with big push in the south

KYIV - Ukraine kicked off a long-awaited thrust in its counteroffensive with an armoured assault on Russian fortifications in the south that may be part of a push to cut Moscow’s land link to its strongholds in occupied Crimea. 

A US official who asked not to be identified discussing details of military operations said Ukrainian troops were making a significant push in the south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region.

Russian officials also reported a major Ukrainian assault more than seven weeks after Kyiv launched attacks against invading forces across the front line.

“Glory to all who defend Ukraine! By the way, our boys at the front had very good results today,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address on Wednesday, without elaborating. “Well done! Details later.”

Analysts with the Institute for the Study of War said overnight that “a significant mechanised counteroffensive operation” appeared “to have broken through certain pre-prepared Russian defensive positions”.

A wide range of diverging claims from Russian military bloggers on the scale of the attack and Ukrainian losses had made the situation unclear, they added.

Ukrainian troops are gradually advancing in the south, and the military is about to receive a consignment of 1,700 strike and reconnaissance drones to help with the counteroffensive, said officials on Wednesday.

Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar reported advances towards the southern, occupied city of Melitopol as well as Berdyansk, which is on the Sea of Azov, and said that Kyiv’s troops were also successfully attacking in the east on the flanks of occupied Bakhmut.

Russia, which sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, holds swathes of territory in the south and east of the country.

Ukraine launched a big push to recapture land this summer, but

progress has been slow

against entrenched Russian positions.

Ms Maliar reported Ukrainian “successes” in the south-east, including near Staromayorske, a village near a cluster of hamlets that Ukraine recaptured in the Donetsk region this summer.

“Battles continue near Staromayorske. Our defenders have successes – they were gaining a foothold on the reached frontiers,” she said.

In the east, Ms Maliar said Ukrainian forces continued to repel Russian advances in the direction of Kupyansk and Lyman, which Ukraine liberated in 2022.

Fierce fighting raged, she said, near the villages of Klishchiivka, Kurdyumivka and Andriivka on the southern flank of Bakhmut, a small city reduced to ruins in a bloody, months-long battle that gave Russian forces control of the area for now.

Despite steady Western military aid, Ukrainian military officials have said that Russia still has an advantage in artillery, tanks and manpower.

Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said 1,700 drones were on their way to the front lines to help the offensive.

“All of them are now going to the front to protect the lives of our soldiers, to make our artillery even more accurate, to destroy the enemy,” Mr Fedorov said in a video showing hundreds of drones laid out in rows on a field.

Kyiv has tried different tactics to take out Russian artillery, air defences, munition warehouses and logistic routes.

Ukrainian producers have sharply increased domestic drone production and more than 10,000 drone operators have been already trained with another 10,000 currently receiving training, Mr Fedorov said. REUTERS