Ukraine has launched an offensive toward the captured southern city of Kherson, but whether it marks the start of a long-awaited attempt to retake large slices of territory lost at the start of Russia’s invasion remains unclear.
Officials in Kyiv have for months been promising such a campaign, while using U.S. long range Himars rocket systems to degrade Russian supply lines and communications in preparation.
In a video address late Monday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recommitted to driving Russian forces from all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea and areas of the eastern Donbas region lost in 2014. Yet he also avoided commenting on the details of the operations.
“Anyone want to know what our plans are? You won’t hear specifics from any truly responsible person. Because this is war,” Zelenskyy said. “But the occupiers should know: We will oust them to the border.”
Zelenskyy has told allies he is eager to make substantial progress before winter, according to people familiar with the discussions. Some military and defense officials in his administration are cautious though about going too hard and fast, fearing the repercussions if the push falls short, the people said.
“The president set up an absolutely clear strategy” aimed at driving Russian troops from all Ukrainian territory, said Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskyy’s chief of staff. But he added that “decisions on concrete operative and tactical acts are made only by the military, in coordination with the president.”
“The military are planning military operations, are evaluating risks and the appropriateness of doing these or those acts,” he told Bloomberg. “It is an effective system which ensures a balance of decisions made.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed an increase in fighting, but said the operation in the southern Kherson and Mykolayiv regions had “failed miserably,” with Ukraine losing 560 troops as well as tanks and aircraft. Those claims were impossible to verify.
A Ukrainian military unit meanwhile said on its Facebook page it had seen Russian soldiers in retreat. Oleksiy Arestovych, a military adviser to Zelenskyy’s administration, claimed Ukrainian troops had broken through the initial lines of Russian defense near Kherson, the first major city captured by Russia after it invaded on Feb. 24.
Pro-Russia social media groups, including a Facebook page for the Wagner mercenary group, also reported an offensive, identifying three areas where Ukrainian forces had managed to move ahead, in one case by 6 km (3.7 miles).
While open source trackers of artillery fire rates confirmed a significant uptick in Ukrainian activity on Monday, none of the claims being traded could be independently verified. Close military observers of the war advised caution before drawing conclusions as to what’s happening.
Ukrainian officials themselves appeared reluctant to talk up developments. After first announcing a new offensive on multiple fronts, Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the military’s southern command, appeared to dial that back.
“We continue positional fighting and hold on to areas where we stand, trying to block the enemy from getting reinforcement,” Humeniuk said on national TV. “We are asking therefore for people to restrain from declaring liberated settlements - there are civilians there and the enemy may strike with missiles or from air.”
Even the intent of the assault is unclear. Ukrainian forces have retaken villages and made small territorial gains many times in the past, but have yet to demonstrate the capability to mount a major offensive.
Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian military and political leaders are under pressure to act. Not only will the weather turn fields to mud as fall weather sets in, making any large military maneuvers more difficult, but Russian forces have been digging in and could prove harder to dislodge at a later date.
Concerns also run high in Kyiv that support for the war effort from European leaders and voters in particular could start to fade over the winter. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has shown willingness to limit gas exports to deepen the continent’s energy price crisis.
At the same time, the consequences of failure in any major counteroffensive could be significant, opening a path for Russian forces to break through in turn, or convincing foreign backers there is little to be gained by continuing to support a Ukrainian war effort that can’t succeed.
Open source analysts speculated on what might happen if Russia was driven from the west bank of the Dnipro River, creating a natural barrier for its forces to defend, but also abandoning to Ukraine the arms and munitions they can’t bring back with them.
There’s little doubt Russia is concerned, having redeployed forces from the eastern Donbas front to defend its vulnerable beachhead around Kherson, which is on the Dnipro’s west bank. With bridges weakened or destroyed by long range Ukrainian artillery, Russian commanders have been forced to rely on pontoon crossings to resupply their forces.
Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of Russia’s occupation government in the city, posted a video Tuesday aimed at reassuring people that Ukraine wouldn’t succeed. The message was undermined by the fact it was filmed in Voronezh, a Russian city about 450 miles away.
Another deputy head of the occupation forces in Kherson, Oleksiy Kovalyov, was killed on Sunday in a gun attack, according to Russia’s Investigative Committee. He is one of the highest-ranking collaborators with Russia to be murdered.
