Unexpected tactics help Ukraine regain territory in Kharkiv

According to information from Ukrainian officials, Western analysts and battlefield images, Ukrainian forces have made the most progress since April, retaking some territory in the northeast.

In a speech on the night of September 8, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the Ukrainian army had recaptured many villages and territories from Russia since the counter-offensive began.

“In total, more than 1,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory have been liberated since the beginning of September,” Zelensky said.

Ukrainian soldiers fire artillery at Russian positions in the Donbass region, June 2022. Photo: Getty

On September 9, the Ukrainian army appeared to be moving quickly to retake the city of Izyum (Kharkiv region), an important logistics center for Russian military operations.

The exact location of Ukrainian forces in the area around Izyum could not be independently determined, according to the New York Times. However, satellite data, independent military analysts, and photos and videos of Ukrainian forces indicate that they are also advancing toward Kupiansk, another logistics center north of Izyum.

Ukraine's tactical surprise

The new offensive in the north appears to have caught Russian forces by surprise. On September 9, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Telegram that it was sending reinforcements to the Kharkiv region, but did not specify the number or location.

For months, Ukrainian leaders have repeatedly announced their intention to strike back in the south, around the port city of Kherson. Kiev has also continued to attack Russian supply lines, ammunition depots and command centers in the region with precision missiles, while massing troops and staging covert attacks on military bases and pro-Russian forces behind enemy lines, but until this week Kiev had said little about the northeast.

Ukraine's advances in the northeast have surprised not only Russia but also military analysts.

According to Ukrainian and Western officials, the counter-offensive is in its early stages, the situation is complicated and current victories are not guaranteed in the long term.

Information from witnesses, local Ukrainian authorities, pro-Russian officials, geolocated videos on social media and satellite footage can give some picture of the Ukrainian campaign.

On September 8, Ukrainian officials said their troops had overrun the town of Balakliya, less than 50 kilometers from the city of Izyum, located near the Donbass region.

Ukrainian soldiers posted photos on September 9 that they said were from the vicinity of Kupiansk, the former capital of the Russian-controlled Kharkiv region.

The pro-Russian official in Kupiansk, Vitaly Ganchev, urged women and children to evacuate as Ukrainian forces closed in on the city. He said the city was under “constant rocket attack from the Ukrainian armed forces”.

Counterattack on many fronts at the same time

In response to growing threats in the south, the Russian military has redeployed thousands of troops from the Donbass region. This appears to thin Russia's defenses in the north andcreate opportunities for Ukraine.

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) believe that Ukrainian forces in the Kharkiv region are likely to take advantage of Russia’s redistribution of forces to the southern front to “launch an opportunistic but highly effective counterattack northwest of Izyum.”

Russia's apparent inability to secure the key flank near Izyum also highlights the challenge of defending the territory Moscow controls along a frontline stretching 2,400km from northeastern Ukraine to the Black Sea coast in the south.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, “tactical surprise” helped Ukrainian forces advance at least 12 miles into Russian-held territory east of the Kharkiv region on September 7, retaking an area of ​​about 400 square kilometers.

While Ukraine has made advances in the north, the counteroffensive in the south has also yielded some results. The Ukrainian Security Service has released photos of the city of Vysokopillia, in the Kherson region. This claim cannot be independently verified.

Last week, Ukrainian forces claimed they had broken through the first Russian defense line at several locations in the Kherson region.

Michael Kofman, director of Russian studies at the CAN think tank in Arlington, Virginia, said the southern counterattack did not appear to be a diversionary tactic aimed at distracting Russian forces.

“These counterattacks appear to be linked. Kherson was a deliberate, well-ordered offensive. Kharkiv was a takeover of favorable conditions,” Kofman said in a September 8 Twitter post.

Russia faces difficulties but still maintains a great advantage

The UK Ministry of Defence intelligence report said that Ukraine's counter-offensives posed a dilemma for Russian commanders about where they should deploy their forces and that Kiev may be looking to exploit this.

“Main effort according toRussian plan“The most likely scenario is an offensive on Bakhmut in the Donbass, but commanders face the dilemma of whether to deploy operational reserves to support this offensive or to defend against further Ukrainian advances to the south. Multiple simultaneous threats spanning 500 km will test Russia’s ability to coordinate operations and reallocate resources to groups of forces in different areas,” the report said.

Chris Miller, a researcher on Russian foreign policy, politics and economics at the American Enterprise Institute, said Ukraine's counterattacks are taking place on multiple fronts because they want to ensure that "Russia will not feel safe on the territory it controls."

However, Mr. Miller warned against getting too optimistic about Ukraine's counterattacks, stressing that the war could be long and fierce.

“We should not expect the counteroffensive to be so easy. Since the beginning of the war, we have seen many times events in which Russia advanced, retreated, and then advanced into new areas. This time, the same thing could happen,” Mr. Miller said.

In a statement on September 9, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, US General Mark Milley said that Ukraine has made clear achievements in recent days. According to him, Ukraine is effectively using newly provided weapons systems to pave the way for their offensive. The US-made HIMARS missile system has been used to attack more than 400 targets and it is just one of the advanced weapons systems deployed by Ukraine.

However, Mr. Miley emphasized, Russia still maintains a significant advantage in the war although their supply lines are under pressure and human resources problems have not been resolved./.