Ukraine is making steady progress in the counteroffensive it launched this month and has reclaimed several towns in the southeast, but its troops are taking heavy losses as they try to plow through entrenched Russian lines.
Even with the losses, the incremental progress is defying expectations, given that Russia has had months to fortify its defenses across the 600-mile front.
The success so far, even in the early stages of what is likely a long campaign, is a good sign for Ukraine. Kyiv is facing pressure to retake swaths of territory in order to keep up support from western allies and chasten Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told NBC News this week the ongoing operation is “difficult” but “generally positive,” while also underscoring the immense stakes of the campaign.
“For Russia, to lose this campaign to Ukraine, I would say actually means losing the war,” Zelensky said.
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Putin offered a contrasting view this week, claiming that Ukrainains were suffering a “catastrophic” defeat.
“The adversary was not successful in any sectors,” Putin said at a meeting with war correspondents, according to state-run media transcriptions. “They have huge losses.”
Putin also claimed that at least 25 percent of the combat vehicles provided to Ukraine for the offensive were destroyed, including 160 battle tanks and more than 300 combat vehicles, while Russia suffered the loss of only 54 tanks.
Pro-Russian social media accounts have frequently shared videos of the destroyed armor online to champion what they are saying is a failed offensive.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a meeting with Russian war correspondents who cover a special military operation at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, June 13, 2023. (Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday that “there will be battle damage on both sides” in the war but was skeptical of the Russian accounts of massive destruction of western armor.
“I think the Russians have shown us that same five vehicles about 1,000 times from 10 different angles,” Austin said at a press conference in Brussels, Belgium. “But quite frankly, the Ukrainians still have a lot of combat capability.”
The U.S. projects the offensive will press on for many months and has stressed western allies will continue to back Ukraine regardless of the outcome.
But western officials and war experts are watching these early days closely for signs of what’s to come.
Jim Townsend, an adjunct senior fellow in the Center for a New American Security’s Transatlantic Security Program, said Ukraine is moving through entrenched defenses and minefields and is probing for weaknesses in the initial phase of the counteroffensive.
Townsend said that means Ukraine is “going to pay a price in terms of vehicle loss” in the first wave of the operation, as it tries to “pick through” Russia’s defenses.
“The momentum really hasn’t started yet,” Townsend said. “What we have to keep in mind is they have had some great support and supplies so far — but that melts away in the opening few weeks of an offensive and we have to keep it going.”
The U.S. announced another $300 million package for Ukraine this week, which includes more Bradley and Stryker infantry fighting vehicles. On Thursday, defense leaders of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group announced billions of more dollars for Kyiv from western allies.
Ukraine is slowly poking through Russian lines in southern Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia in what appears to be a wider effort to break through to the Sea of Azov by seizing the cities of Berdyansk and Melitopol. If either city is taken, Ukraine would cut off a land bridge from Russia to Crimea and endanger critical Russian supply lines.
So far, Ukrainian forces are only breaking through the edges of Russian-occupied territory, but analysts say this is a wide probing of defenses and a much stronger punch will come in the months ahead, once soft spots are found.
Ukrainian leaders said this week that troops liberated seven villages largely on the outskirts of the regions: Lobkove, Levadne, Novodarivka, Neskuchne, Storozheve, Makarivka and Blahodatne.
Ukraine is also conducting a slow advance through the embattled city of Bakhmut further north in the Donetsk region.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said in her latest update that troops advanced up to a quarter mile in Bakhmut and a similar distance in the Zaporizhzhia region, with fighting ongoing in the towns of Makarivka, Novodanylivka and Novopokrovsk.
The Institute for the Study of War assessed limited gains for Ukraine but said Makarivka in southern Donetsk is largely under Ukrainian control.
Russian military bloggers, however, say the Ukrainian advance is struggling to overcome defenses.
Alexander Kots wrote on Telegram that Ukrainains are taking big hits — including the loss of five western-supplied vehicles in one hour — and have failed to advance toward Tokmak, a crucial point between Ukrainian territory and Melitopol.
“The Russian side managed to predict the main directions of the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Zaporozhye direction and prepare well,” Kots wrote. “The further the Ukrainian offensive develops, the more difficult it will be for the Ukrainian army.”
Russian blogger Rybar said Ukraine has suffered 7,000 casualties and that fierce fighting is taking place around Makarivka and other towns in the southern Donetsk region without any major success for Ukrainians.
Independent analysis of the southern advances for Ukraine was confirmed and reported by Reuters. Reporters found Ukrainians had successfully moved into the towns of Storozheve and Neskuchne in the southeast.
Nico Lange, a senior fellow at the Munich Security Conference, said Ukrainians were setting the stage for a wider strike. But he cautioned against expecting a sweeping victory anytime soon, such as Ukrainians retaking Melitopol or Berdyansk.
“A first, more modest goal is to bring the railroads into range of Ukraine’s precision fire, cutting off supplies and using [missiles] to really hit hard on logistics and command and control,” Lange said.
As Ukraine advances, Russia is struggling with low morale and disunity within the military, including a feud with private military company Wagner Group, which played a key role in taking Bakhmut last month.
Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has repeatedly aired his criticisms of the Russian Defense Ministry, said he might leave Ukraine after his soldiers engaged in a shootout with Russian troops in late May near Bakhmut.
Prigozhin alleged Russian soldiers mined an escape route for Wagner and fired at them when they moved to disable the explosives.
Prigozhin is also resisting a decree from the Kremlin to force Russian-allied armies to sign a contract that would bring them under tighter control. The deadline for the contract signing is July 1, which the British Defense Ministry says will be a “key way-point in the feud.”
More broadly, Russia is struggling to fend off attacks in regions bordering Ukraine, with anti-Putin militants marching into Russian towns and Ukrainian strikes frequently bombarding the area, placing more wartime stress on Russia at home.
Putin this week said Russian forces might have to seize more territory to prevent the attacks, but he also floated the idea of peace if western security aid to Ukraine stops.
Townsend, from the Center for a New American Security, said the feuding with Prigozhin has damaged Russian operations. He also said Ukraine is likely to “take advantage” of Russian weaknesses: low troop morale and “bad leadership.”
“There’s a lot of problems the Russians have,” Townsend said, and “they’re going up against a very motivated Ukraine force that has a lot of Western equipment.”
Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the fighting was intense and it was too early to see how the operation was going to unfold. But America’s highest ranking military officer said the morale of soldiers is a vital part of war and that Russian leadership is “not necessarily coherent.”
“Their troop’s morale is not high,” Milley said Thursday at a press conference in Belgium. “So many of them don’t even know why they’re there.”