A Counteroffensive by any other Name

"We need to understand that what we're calling the Ukraine counteroffensive is not like a football match."

"You know, it's not going to b e done and dusted in 90 minutes with a halftime on an appointed day."

"It's been nine months at least in the preparation."

General Sir Richard Barrons, former Commander, U.K. Joint Forces Command

"The attacks in the Zaporizhzhia and the Donetsk regions, the developments in Russia's Belgorod region, and increasingly frequent strikes on Russian military depots in the rear are all part of preparations to the Ukrainian counteroffensive."

"Kyiv is looking for Russia's weak spots and trying to spread the front as wide as possible."

Ukrainian military analyst Roman Svitan

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has welcomed advances he says Ukrainian troops have been making, including around Bakhmut | Sergey Shestak/AFP via Getty Images

Kyiv is not outright committing to spelling out the start of its long-awaited counteroffensive. With a bit of a mischievous, conspiratorial air, a video Ukraine released shows several soldiers wearing full combat gear, raising a cautious finger of 'silence', to their lips. "Plans love silence. There will be no start announcement" words flash on the screen, and then a scenario of warplanes in flight. Which really takes the imagination easily on a flight of its own.

 

Ukraine has intensified its shelling of Russian positions in recent weeks, pushing back successfully against Russian efforts to extend its territorial gains outside the ruined yet still embattled eastern city of Bakhmut. Russian pro-Kyiv paramilitary groups have been fighting alongside Ukrainian armed forces, taking the initiative to launch forays over the border into Russian territory in attacks on the Belgorod region.

 

Cross-border incursions and Ukraine's military shelling have ravaged a few towns and villages close to the frontier, forcing the evacuation of residents by the thousands, provoking the ire of Russian hawks who in turn roundly criticize the Kremlin for its failure to strike back decisively. A rare drone attack on May 30 targeted Moscow with slight damage but causing major embarassment in exposing glaring capital air defence breaches.

 

The attacks have been described by military analysts as "shaping operations", a series of deliberate moves whose intention it is to probe Russian defences, to force Moscow to spread its forces and to draw attention from those regions where Ukraine might decide to focus its counteroffensive. In turn the Russian military has intensified strikes within Ukraine, launching near-daily drone barrages and missile attacks targeting high-value military facilities.

 

A Ukrainian soldier covers his ears while firing a mortar at Russian positions on the front line near Bakhmut in the Donetsk region of Ukraine on May 29. (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)

The declaration by Moscow that it destroyed the U.S.provided Patriot missile defence systems in Kyiv, that it struck the military intelligence headquarters also located there, and hit airbases and weapons stockpiles, have gone unacknowledged by Ukrainian officials. Ukraine hacked into some TV broadcasts in Crimea to air a military statement regarding the looming counteroffensive.

 

A fake address by President Vladimir Putin on Monday was aired where a voice resembling his was heard in several Russian-occupied regions to declare martial law, a nation-wide mobilization, and a massive evacuation of three border regions, a move intended by Ukraine to undermine morale. Moscow in turn was accused by Kyiv of hybrid warfare where Russian claims of a major Ukrainian effort to pierce Russian defences formed part of "information and psychological operations" whose intention was to "demoralize Ukrainians and mislead the community."

"Moscow is already actively involved in repelling ... a global offensive that does not yet exist", mocked Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak. Through launching multiple attacks on several front line sectors, according to military analysts, Ukraine has attempted to shield its intentions to force Russia to scatter its resources. 

It is the expectation of many military experts that Ukraine will attempt to ram through Russian defences toward the Sea of Azov coast to break the land corridor to Crimea created by Moscow after it captured the key port of Mariupol in May of 2022. The Russian Defence Ministry claimed that several Ukrainian battalions were dispatched to ram the Russian defensive positions, pushed back following significant losses.

Another story altogether, however, is told by some Russian military bloggers who counter-state that Ukrainian troops managed to make some gains on Sunday, and more resources were pouring in to exploit that successful strategy. For the first time, they claim, German-made Leopard tanks were seen in numbers, in the area.

Ukrainian soldiers wave a national flag atop a personnel armoured carrier | Photo by Anatolii Stepanov / AFP via Getty Images