Russia spent two days searching for the right words to sell the defeat as part of a larger Russian plan. Russia’s defense ministry finally spoke in a petty statement on Saturday of a coordinated “withdrawal” of troops “regrouping” to “strengthen operations in neighboring Donbas.”
In reality, the Russians have been displaced by Ukrainian troops who have captured dozens of towns and cities in a matter of days, including the strategically important Balaklia, Kupyansk and Izyum. Russian soldiers offer little resistance and flee en masse, making the advance much faster than thought possible.
The Ukrainian army admires the speed of the offensive, but also the planning. The offensive at Kharkiv completely surprises the Russians. They have their eyes on Kherson, in the south, where Ukraine is busy taking hold of the city occupied by the Russian army. Russian troops have been withdrawn from the eastern regions to defend Kherson. As a result, the defense of the eastern front is considerably thinned if Ukraine launches the attack at Kharkiv. The ‘double stroke’ is called a ‘master move’, ‘brilliant’, a ‘tactic that will make the history books’.
Jubilation
The country is in a jubilant mood. This is the boost it needed after the war slowly threatened to grind to a stalemate. The mood also has President Volodymyr Zelensky, who derisively says, “The Russian army is showing its best side, its backside.”
‘You have to be careful with euphoria,’ says Mart de Kruif, former commander of the Dutch land forces. “It’s a tactical victory. Ukraine has taken the initiative. But it is not a turning point in the war.’ Nor is it a surprise, at least not for De Kruif himself, as a military ‘professional’. “War is an art,” he says, “operational art,” which is the result “of careful planning, and of extensive training of Ukrainian military personnel that British and Americans began in 2014.” 2014 was the year Russia forcibly annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, setting Putin on a run for more.
Since then, however, Ukraine has learned a lot and Russia has not. Unlike Russian soldiers, the Ukrainians are given the space to go their own way from their president Zelensky. This is in contrast to Putin’s rigid way of trying to keep everything in his own hands. ‘The Russian system is very directive, up to the highest level’, says De Kruif. “Ukrainian is much more flexible.” A second difference is that the morale of the Ukrainian military is so much better than that of the Russians: ‘Those people are fighting for their country.’
Speed
Words such as “lightning attack” and “shocking speed” of the advance circulate in the media, and even experienced interpreters are desperately trying to keep up with the speed of events. The US Institute for the Study of War, which maintains daily maps of the war’s progress, reports that “Ukrainian military personnel are on the outskirts of Izyum” and that they will “capture that city in the next 48 hours”, after which it will be cautiously adds: ‘if it hasn’t already happened’.
It has indeed already happened: after initially fierce fighting, the Russians evacuated the city. Izhum, captured by the Russians on April 1 after a bitter battle lasting a month, is recovered in barely a day. What the Russians leave behind here and there are numerous ready-to-use tanks and other vehicles, and depots full of ammunition and fuel, insofar as they have not been shot down by the Ukrainians.
The Ukrainian advance poses a threat not only to Russian military personnel, but also to civilians who are on Russia’s side, such as administrators and ‘volunteers’. Russia has called on these people to leave the area, leading to a small influx of refugees near the Russian border town of Belgorod, 75 kilometers from Kharkiv.
With the liberation of Izyum and Kupyansk, the Ukrainian advance has left Russia with a major problem: these two cities are crucial junctions of roads and railways – supply lines for the troops further south, all the way to Kherson. Izhum was the supply center for the entire eastern front.
war economy
It is therefore a sensitive blow, but Russia still controls a large part of Ukraine. It has Crimea and it has the ‘land bridge’ that connects Russia to Crimea, with the cities of Donetsk, Mariupol, Melitopol and Kherson. And he won’t give up without a fight.
De Kruif therefore warns against over-optimism. ‘We still have about ten weeks until winter starts. I do not rule out the possibility that Ukraine will make considerable gains in territory until then, but the Russians will not be defeated so easily everywhere. It will be difficult especially with Kherson. And if they make it through winter, Putin will have five, six months to build a war economy. Car factories start to build tanks, other factories make ammunition, and in the meantime he gets time to recruit soldiers. The West can’t do that.’
The advance does not come without a price. Zelensky announced that 9,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the past month. On the Russian side there would be 25,000. Since the start of the war, on February 24, according to Ukrainian data, and according to figures from the Russian Ministry of Finance, some 50,000 Russian soldiers have already been killed.