Russia's front is shaking: why Kiev's Kharkiv offensive is celebrating success

After months on the defensive, Kiev's troops in the Kharkiv region are launching a counteroffensive.

Russia's front is shaking: why Kiev's Kharkiv offensive is celebrating success

After months on the defensive, Kiev's troops in the Kharkiv region are launching a counteroffensive. Within a very short time, the units liberate several strategically important towns. Experts name several factors for the success.

The Ukrainian counter-offensive in the Kharkiv region seems to have taken the Russian occupiers completely by surprise. After months of trench warfare and artillery battles, Kiev's units managed to liberate strategically important towns such as Kupjansk and Izyum in a very short time. In the past five days, Ukrainian troops have reclaimed more territory than Moscow's forces have occupied since April, according to the US military institute ISW. Even the Kremlin can no longer hide the defeats and reports that its own troops are retreating. Experts cite several reasons for the Ukrainian army's coup d'état. At the same time, they warn against Russian countermeasures.

"The Russians were lured into withdrawing troops by Ukraine's regular talk about the imminent Kherson offensive in the south," Lawrence Freedman, retired professor of war studies at London's Kings College, said in a blog post. As a result, the Russian frontline in the Kharkiv region has been thinned out. Gustav Gressel from the European Council on Foreign Relations makes a similar statement. "The great distraction of an alleged offensive in southern Cherson succeeded in Ukraine," said the military expert in an interview with the editorial network Germany.

But not only the troop transfers seem to have weakened Russia's armed forces in the region. According to Freedman, the high losses also play a role and currently prevent effective defense. Rob Lee, a military analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, agrees. "Russia's gains in Donbass were probably a Pyrrhic victory because it suffered heavy losses it could not afford," Lee wrote on Twitter. Kyiv, on the other hand, now seems to be building its counterattacks on elite associations. "Ukraine is deploying the crown jewels of the Ukrainian army in Kharkiv, primarily the air assault and airborne brigades," Gressel said.

Jack Watling, research associate at the British Royal United Services Institute, sees the Western arms deliveries in particular as the decisive key to success. The provision of multiple rocket launchers enabled Ukraine to systematically destroy Russian depots and command posts in the run-up to the counter-offensive. By equipping Ukrainian fighter jets with anti-radar missiles and providing modern artillery systems, Ukraine has also hampered Russia's reconnaissance capabilities, Watling writes in a guest article for The Guardian.

The next few days should show how the counter-offensive will continue. US military analyst Patrick Fox already sees the conditions for a major Ukrainian victory in place. "The current operation has the potential to lead to a footrace that the Allies experienced in 1944 when the Wehrmacht withdrew from France," Fox wrote on Twitter. The Ukrainian army "must now capitalize on its success and inflict maximum damage on the Russian army while making sure it doesn't overstretch its own lines and leave itself vulnerable to counterattacks."

According to Watling, the Kremlin now has two options. The Russian high command could use counterattacks to try to regain the lost territory. According to the expert, Russia still has freshly mobilized units that are being trained and equipped for the war in Donbass. With a premature deployment of these units, however, Moscow would risk high losses. Alternatively, Moscow could move troops from other fronts to the region to strengthen defenses. However, a regrouping would potentially tear new gaps in the front line, which Ukraine could then exploit.

Gressel believes it will be a few days before new Russian units arrive in the north-east. Until then, Moscow will try to stop the Ukrainian attack spearheads with airstrikes. The extent to which the airstrikes will slow down the counteroffensive cannot yet be estimated. "In the Kharkiv area, however, the Ukraine relies on the Gepard tank from Germany to protect its tank tips against attacks from the air."

For Australian retired general Mick Ryan, the Russian forces are not defeated after recent defeats but are in serious trouble. Ukraine now has the initiative, Ryan writes on Twitter. "The war isn't over yet, but maybe the tide is finally turning."