The Russian invasion of Ukraine It’s been nine months now. Nine months in which the Ukrainian army, against all expectations, but especially those of the Kremlin, has waged a merciless fight in the countryside and in the cities, making the Russian troops retreat, giving up the ground they had gained. But despite the success of Volodomir Zelensky and his, Ukraine is far, far from a victory: his soldiers have recaptured only 55 percent of the territory occupied by Russia, after its invasion in February.
But there is definitely a turning of the tide. Russia withdraws and is on the defensive in the south and northeast, but continues hitting with their missiles. A strategy that is sure to last through the cold winter: Ukraine must decide whether to use its advantage and advance into Russian-occupied territory or await the reaction of Russian troops. Vladimir Putin.
If Zelensky’s advance, the risk is high: the next battles will be on ground heavily defended by the Russians. Ukraine’s success has been to fortify its positions and push the Russian retreat at a steady pace: thus combat on the islands of the Dnieper riverin the snowy plains near Zaporizhia, and along the so-called Svátove-Kreminná line, in north-eastern Ukraine.
With this strategy forced the Russians to withdraw from Kherson, and Zelenski raised a Ukrainian flag again. “It’s the end of the beginning,” said the Ukrainian president, replicating a famous speech by Winston Churchill after the British victory at El Alamein in World War II (1942). Then the conflict would drag on for another three years. “This is the beginning of the end of the war,” insisted the Ukrainian president.
Ukraine’s gains mean that Russian supply lines in the south of the country, are now within range of Ukrainian rockets, and kyiv replicates the enemy’s strategy. But the Russian withdrawal allows him to take a more solid position on the east bank of the Dnipro River: Putin continues to send soldiers to compensate for his heavy casualties.
And the thousands of Russian soldiers withdrawn from the Kherson region are now free to reinforce the defense lines in the northeast, organize new attacks in the Donetsk region and strengthen control of Moscow over the land bridge from Russia to Crimea, a prime target for the Kremlin.
Military analysts point out that the pace of Ukrainian offensives is likely to slow down, and that winter will give ill-equipped Russian soldiers a break. But on the other hand, the war began in the winter of last February and both armies have a lot of experience fighting in the snows of the Eurasian steppe.
In this withdrawal, Moscow develops drone attacks and missiles aimed at destroying Ukraine’s infrastructure and deteriorating the quality of life of millions of civilians in an attempt to demoralize them: last week they launched the biggest bombardment of the war against power plants, natural gas installations and works hydraulics, a sustained campaign of devastation.
Colonel Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, said the Army has “autonomous power sources” so problems with the national grid do not directly affect soldiers. And he insisted that these attacks push Ukrainian soldiers to fight harder: Ukraine fires two missiles for every Russian rocket, and the invaders are now using cheap drones to deplete Ukraine’s defenses, just like they did before.
The spokesman understood that these bombings are aimed at force kyiv to the negotiating table. “It is evident that they want to impose certain conditions, they want to force us to negotiate,” he said. Along these lines, Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, told the press that the attacks on the infrastructure are “the consequence” of Ukraine’s unwillingness to “start negotiations.”
Zelensky affirms that they are not willing to negotiateand he hopes that this inertia in the advance of his troops will give him an advantage: he indicated that Russian soldiers were already withdrawing 15 to 25 kilometers from the eastern bank of the Dnipro River near Kherson, in order to be out of range of the Ukrainian howitzers.
The Russians have also added new layers of defenses outside the southern city of Melitopol, which was occupied by Russia in the first days of the war. Ukraine will try to divide the Russian forces in the east and south by going through Melitopol. According to Oleksiy Hromov, general and member of the General Staff of Ukraine, this front is the most complex: he reported 500 military clashes in that region.
Donbás has been divided into two battles: one of trenches through the woods in a line known as Svátove-Kreminná, and a battle for Bakhmut, the city in that valley guarded by artillery.
For Russia, capturing Bakhmut could open a route to other, more important cities. And Wagner, the private company of the Russian army, seeks to compensate with a victory there losses elsewhere: its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is close to Putin. Ukraine, for its part, does not want to cede any city without a fight
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