The war in Ukraine may be heading for its bloodiest phase yet, according to senior Ukrainian officials and western analysts, who say a long-threatened southern counteroffensive by Kyiv’s forces will result in a “huge battle” and will need to overcome increasingly well dug-in Russian troops.
People interviewed by the Guardian, including those who have recently escaped Kherson, describe Russian forces in the south building hardened tank shelters, digging trenches and bringing in prefabricated concrete pillboxes by lorry.
An increase in strikes in recent days against key Russian weapons stores and logistics around Kherson – which fell to Russian forces in early March – has added to suggestions that some Ukrainian forces may be edging closer to the long-promised offensive, even as Russian officials say they plan to annex further territory.
At his quarters in a training area in the south of the country hidden in an area of dense scrub, “Makita” – a Ukrainian battalion infantry instructor who only wished to give his nom de guerre – spelled out the challenges for a southern offensive.
“We are holding our positions right now to the east of Mykolaiv. But the intention is to liberate the areas held by Russian forces. The biggest challenge is to do that with the minimum losses on the Ukrainian side.
“Russian forces are fortifying what are already good positions,” he added. “They had a month in which to improve the defences. They also appear to be bringing up reserves and more weapons including 2S7s [self-propelled heavy artillery].
“The first task will be to push back the Russians towards Kherson and over the Dnipro [Dnieper] River. We know it is going to be hard.”
With the far western end of the sprawling 120-mile southern frontline marked by the city of Mykolaiv, any Ukrainian offensive will be seen as a key test of whether Kyiv’s troops can push back in force, in contrast to the limited and local counteroffensives that have been witnessed so far.
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov’s declaration this week that Russia was expanding its war aims from the Donbas, including to the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south, has increased pressure on Kyiv to follow through on its promise to drive Russian forces from areas they have occupied.
Ukrainian officials, for their part, have been explicit that the next phase of the war could escalate into even greater violence, amid the risk of further Russian escalation in response to any Ukrainian push south. Earlier this month Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and minister for the reintegration of temporarily occupied territories, called on Ukrainians in the occupied territories to leave by all means possible. “There will be a huge battle. I don’t want to scare anyone; everyone understands everything anyway,” she said.
The mayor of Mykolaiv, Alexander Senkevich, whose city has endured months of almost daily attacks, said: “Military theory says you need a three-to-one advantage if you are attacking. But they [the Russians] are building fortifications including tank blinds to protect their armour. They will try to extend any fighting into the winter when they will be under cover while our troops will be in the field.
“But with our city being targeted almost every day, and Ukrainians being killed every day, we need a counteroffensive.”
What is clear is that if a counteroffensive does occur in the coming weeks and months, Kherson will be at its centre. Russian commanders are reported to have moved troops from more vulnerable positions to concentrate on urban areas such as Kherson, whose recapture is widely believed to be one of Kyiv’s primary objectives, as well as digging trench systems around the key Antonivskiy Bridge over the River Dnieper into the city.
The bridge has been described as a “key vulnerability for Russian forces” in a UK Ministry of Defence assessment, and Ukrainian strikes this week punched holes in it.
It is one of two main routes into the city, along with a road over the dam at Nova Kakhovka to the east of Kherson, a town that has also seen repeated recent Ukrainian strikes on ammunition stores and logistics. The threat to the Antonivskiy Bridge is seen as particularly dangerous to Russian forces there.
Euhenia Virlych and Vladislav Gladkij, two Ukrainian journalists who escaped Kherson earlier in July after hiding in the city for months, described the situation there.
Virlych said of the Russians: “They are deepening their presence there.
“They are aware that the Ukrainian army is getting closer from one side.” Virlych suggested that in one place they may be as close as six miles from the city.
“The Russians have also become much more oppressive. They are looking for activists, signs of anyone who is pro-Ukrainian, and they are now moving their checkpoints around the city.”
Virlych added: “They are mining the fields on the approaches from Mykolaiv. They are mining everything, and their soldiers are digging trenches.”
Other witnesses who have travelled in the region report that some Russian checkpoints on roads in rural areas have gone or are now more sparsely occupied as troops have been pulled back towards Kherson.
Russian forces also appear to be moving ammunition stores, which have been struck repeatedly by US-supplied Himars rocket systems in recent weeks, out of range of missile strikes.
In a long analysis earlier this week of what a southern offensive might look like, the Kyiv Independent’s defence correspondent, Illia Ponomarenko, suggested that despite recent reinforcements, Russian troops are thinly spread across the long frontline, compared with the Donbas, and may be poorly trained.
“The local terrain opens up opportunities for Ukraine,” wrote Ponomarenko. “Due to the lack of roads in the oblast and few bridges across the Dnipro River, Russian logistics are slower in Kherson.
“And transportation bottlenecks force Russian forces to keep their supplies concentrated in a few locations near train stations. These saturated areas are juicy targets for Himars.”
Few, however, are in doubt about the coming trajectory of the war.
“It is just a matter of time before the next more bloody phase,” the head of Ukraine’s national security council, Oleksiy Danilov, told the Guardian.
“It will happen, unfortunately, because the Russian Federation will not stop. Their objective is to conquer as much land as possible and the first task is to destroy us.
“We understand that and it is a difficult question how to prepare the civilian population. But with airstrikes going on all across the country our citizens understand we are in a state of war.
“We cannot relax and everybody has to be ready for escalation and from any direction.
“We are preparing people in the south. The government is warning people to leave. Everything between the territory of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov is in the danger zone.”
