Ukrainian Kharkiv Counter-Offensive

 

"The military operations of the Ukrainian armed forces around Kharkiv, especially north and northeast of Kharkiv, are sort of a success story."

"The Ukrainian army was able to push these war criminals to a line beyond the reach of their artillery."

Ukrainian Defense Ministry adviser Yuriy Saks

"Our assessment is that they're [Russians] having to pull some forces away from the axes leading to the control of the Donbas region because of what has happened in Kharkiv, and it just underscores the challenges they have."

Retired U.S. General Jack Keane, chairman, Institute for the Study of War

Ukrainian troops try to move forward, smoke visible in the distance   Darren Conway/BBC

 

Ukrainians appear to be moving into striking distance of Russian rear supply lines that have been sustaining the major Russian attack force further south, by pushing back Russian forces occupying the outskirts of Kharkiv since the beginning of the February 24 invasion. In other words the Ukraine military has gone from defence to offensive mode. A situation no one might have imagined might result, when Moscow sent its military into Ukraine planning to usurp its government and withdraw after installing a puppet government.

Yesterday, Ukraine's government announced that its forces had recaptured villages from Russian troops established north and northeast of Kharkiv in a counter-offensive that on the surface may signal a startling shift in the momentum of the Russian war on its neighbour, and in practical terms jeopardizing Russia's planned major advance to secure Ukrainian territory as its own.

Ukrainian troops recaptured Cherkaski Tyshky, Ruski Tyshki, Borshchova and Slobozhanske, north of Kharkiv, its second largest city. Russian forces were being pushed out of Kharkiv's range. "They're trying to cut in and behind the Russians to cut off the supply lines, because that's really one of their [the Russians'] main weaknesses", Neil Melvin of the RUSI think tank located in London, explained. Clearly, Ukraine's strategic responses to Russian plans have out-manoeuvred their enemy.

The Russian military had been forced by unforeseen Ukrainian resistance to alter its plan to enter Kyiv at the end of March. Those occupying towns surrounding Kyiv were forced to retreat in an unspoken defeat, ordered to join the main force focused now on a plan to encircle Ukrainian troops in the Donbas with the city of Izyun as a base. Attacks by Russian troops from three directions has seen a stark Ukrainian resistance.

 

Residents with bags packed walk part a destroyed building in Saltivka, 29 April   Getty Image

 

The Ukrainian push-back near Kharkiv could see Ukraine forcing Moscow to switch its plans yet again in defence of its supply lines to Izyum. Russia's advance is already feeling the pinch, the counterattack sapping Russian intentions. Russian forces are still attempting to storm the last bastion of Ukrainian resistance in the ruined city of Mariupol, pummeling the Azovstal steelworks.

Despite the grand imperial pride on display two days earlier in Moscow when Red Square hosted the Russian military Victory Day parade, their beaming president celebrating the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany's invasion during the Second World War when Hitler decided to attack an Axis partner despite their alliance to disrupt the European continent and divide the territorial spoils, Moscow and Vladimir Putin don't have too much to actually celebrate, these days.