Is Ukraine’s counteroffensive progressing?
Is Ukraine’s counteroffensive progressing?
Ukraine’s troops say some southern areas have been retaken, but Russia has reportedly slowed their advance.
Published On 31 Aug 202231 Aug 2022
Ukraine’s armed forces claim to have launched a long-awaited ground operation to take back territories in the Kherson region in the 27th week of the war, striking in eight directions simultaneously.
“We have launched offensive operations in many directions … we can confirm that we have broken through the first line of defence,” said a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern command, Natalia Gumenyuk, on August 29.
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The offensive comes after weeks of pummelling Russian supply lines, command posts, equipment and ammunition warehouses and airbases with high-precision rocket artillery and drones to weaken resupply capabilities to the front lines. Russian forces had responded by creating pontoon crossings on the Dnieper River.
Serhiy Khlan, a former adviser to Kherson’s governor, said Ukrainian forces had destroyed a Russian pontoon ferry crossing near the village of Lvove. Ukrainian and Russian sources also showed Ukraine had struck a Russian pontoon crossing made of barges next to the crippled Antonivsky bridge.
“The effects of destroying ferries will likely be more ephemeral than those of putting bridges out of commission, so attacking them makes sense in conjunction with active ground operations,” said the Institute for the Study of War.
Russian military blogger Grey Zone, who has 276,000 Telegram subscribers, reported that Ukrainian forces had advanced 6km (3.7 miles) to take Sukhyi Stavok, north of Kherson city.
An unnamed military source told CNN that Ukrainian forces had taken settlements including Pravdyne, Nova Dmytrivka and Tomyna Balka, about 23km (14.3 miles) southwest of Kherson city, suggesting they were advancing along a salient south of Kherson city.
Ukrainian officials from the Kherson region were urging residents to temporarily evacuate Kherson city “so that our armed forces can quickly liberate it from the enemy”.
A local resident told Al Jazeera that the counteroffensive had some initial success, but was becoming bogged down.
“The villages along the front line – these the Ukrainians broke easily. In the second line of defence there was blood spilled. I heard 1,000 Ukrainians and 1,500 Russians [were killed],” said Pantelis Boubouras, Greece’s honourary consul in Kherson, who runs a construction business in Odesa.
