KIEV, Ukraine (AP) – The ambush had been postponed three times before one night Ukrainian commanders decided the conditions were finally right. Shrouded in darkness, a battalion of Kiev’s 129th Brigade pushed ahead, stealthily advancing on unsuspecting Russian soldiers.
By the time the Russians stationed at the front realized they were being attacked, it was too late.
Ukraine’s recapture of the small village of Neskuchne in the eastern Donetsk region on June 10 summarizes the opening strategy of a major counteroffensive launched earlier this month. Small platoons rely on the element of surprise and, if successful, make incremental progress in territorial and combat reconnaissance.
“We had a few scenarios. In the end, I think we chose the best. To come quietly and unexpectedly,” said Serhii Sherebylo, the 41-year-old deputy commander of the battalion that recaptured Neskuchne.
Along the 1,500-kilometer front line, Ukrainian forces are trying to wear down the enemy and reshape the battle lines to create more favorable conditions for a decisive advance east. One strategy could be to split Russian forces in two to isolate the Crimea peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014, from the rest of the territory it controls.
Ukrainian troops’ morale was boosted last week by an armed insurgency in Russia that posed the greatest threat to President Vladimir Putin’s power in more than two decades. However, it remains to be seen how the uprising of the Wagner Group mercenaries under the command of the Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin will affect the course of the war.
The internal infighting is a major distraction for Russia’s military and political leaders, but experts say the impact on the battlefield appears to be minimal so far.
Over the past four days, Ukraine has ramped up operations around the eastern town of Bakhmut, which Wagner forces captured after months of intense fighting and then handed over to Russian soldiers who continue to lose some ground on their southern flank.
The story goes on
Along the front line, however, the strength of the Russian military has remained unchanged since the uprising.
It is not clear where Ukraine will attempt a decisive breakthrough, but any success will depend on newly formed Western-equipped brigades that are not yet deployed. Currently, Russia’s heavily fortified positions and relative air superiority are holding back Ukraine’s advance.
Military experts say it’s hard to say who has the advantage: Russia is dug in with manpower and ammunition, while Ukraine is versatile, equipped with modern weapons and adept on the battlefield.
But with the muddy autumn season just four months away, some Ukrainian commanders say they are a race against time.
“Although the Ukrainian armed forces are making small and steady strides, they do not yet have the operational initiative, which means they do not dictate the pace and terms of action,” said Dylan Lee Lehrke, an analyst at UK security intelligence agency Janes.
“This has led some observers to claim that the counter-offensive has not lived up to expectations,” Lehrke said. But Ukraine’s blitzkrieg liberation of eastern Kharkiv region last year will never happen, he said, because “Russian forces have had too much time to prepare their fortifications.”
According to Russian authorities, Ukraine has suffered significant casualties since the counteroffensive began — 259 tanks and 790 armored vehicles, according to Putin, whose claims could not be independently verified.
Fierce battles are fought in several combat zones.
A catastrophic dam rupture 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 advances in the region, although Ukrainian officials have not confirmed these reports.
In the agricultural plains of the south-eastern Zaporizhia region, Ukrainian troops, supported by tanks, artillery and drones, appear to be taking more determined action against Russian positions.
If Ukrainian troops regained access to the Sea of Azov from that direction, they would deal a severe blow to Russian forces, effectively cutting off Moscow’s land bridge to Crimea. It is too early to tell if this is a realistic goal.
They are still a long way off.
In an underground command center at the front lines, a Ukrainian special forces commander with the callsign “Hunter” stares intently at an aerial view of the lush green battlefield.
His soldiers have just stormed an enemy position, but the return fire is constant. The Russians fire missiles into the air while his fighters hide and await orders.
Hunter instructs the drone operator to shoot.
A huge plume of black smoke rises into the air on the screen. A hit, he says.
The fight here is only going to get tougher, analysts say.
Ukrainian troops are still several kilometers from Russia’s main defense lines. As they advance deeper into occupied territory, fighters must contend with Russian defenses, laid out in a diagonal pattern and up to 10 kilometers deep in some areas, including minefields, anti-tank ditches and pyramidal obstacles dubbed “Dragon’s Teeth.” ” are known.
And with each advance, they become more vulnerable to Russian air attacks.
At least 130 square kilometers of land has been recaptured in the south since the counteroffensive began, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said this week.
It’s not the pace many were hoping for.
A US official familiar with the Biden administration’s mindset said the counteroffensive is a “long struggle” that will test Ukrainian forces in a way few other episodes of the 16-month-old war have would have done. The official, who was not authorized to comment and spoke on condition of anonymity, said a “D-Day moment” is never expected, but that the early start suggests the pace of the Counter-offensive will be “tough and challenging” for the Ukrainians.
Unlike some previous battles of the war, where Russian forces offered little resistance or even fled the battlefield, Ukrainian forces are currently facing stiff resistance, the official said.
In the northeast, Russian forces have stepped up offensive operations toward the Kreminna Forest near Lyman to create a buffer against incursions near Moscow’s supply lines, Lehrke said. But it may well have a secondary goal – to force more Ukrainian operations, he said.
The dense forest area has proven to be notoriously difficult terrain.
“The Russians have sabotage groups that are going into the forests and there have been cases where they have penetrated behind the first line of Ukrainian defenses,” said Pavlo Yuzov, spokesman for the National Guard Thunderstorm Brigade, which is currently in Lyman.
Colonel Volodymyr Silenko, commander of the 30th Mechanized Brigade operating near Bakhmut, ignores criticism of the pace of the attacks. It’s much more important to focus on how your opponent thinks and reacts, he said.
“War is not a competition of brute force and strength of arms and people, it’s more about who is smarter,” he said.
Silenko knows that the Russians watch his men as he watches theirs; Moscow sees their movements, how they change, how they develop.
“Our job is to trick them,” he said.
Deception was a key part of Ukraine’s most significant battlefield success to date, last fall’s “Kherson ploy”. By making it appear that the city of Kherson was the main target of this counter-offensive, Ukrainian forces were able to quickly recapture the northern Kharkiv region.
“It was a master class in deception,” Lehrke said. “It remains to be seen whether they will succeed this time as well.”
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Associated Press journalists Evgeniy Maloletka contributed from the Donetsk region, Mystyslav Chernov from Zaporizhia and Aamer Mahdani from Washington.