Ukraine’s rout of Russian troops in its eastern Kharkiv region has re-energised its forces and cast doubt on old assumptions about Moscow’s military might, but also placed the embattled country in a difficult and potentially dangerous dilemma.
Kyiv must now decide, in card-game terms, whether to stick or twist: either gamble that its troops can use their momentum to retake more territory without over-reaching and becoming vulnerable to a Russian counter-attack; or consolidate newly-liberated land and dig in for what is likely to be a gruelling winter of grinding war and energy shortages.
“Are we tired? Our guys say we’ll rest when we get home, after victory,” says Roman, a 27-year-old combat engineer with a unit in the Kharkiv region, where this month Ukraine has retaken some 4,000 sq km of land and more than 300 settlements that are home to 150,000 people.
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“We’re military men and we feel that victory is close, that we just have to push a bit more and then we’ll have a proper rest. But for now we keep working. And we’re working hard, keeping going, and when we finally get home it will all be good.”
Kyiv announced the start of a counter-offensive in the Kherson region near the Black Sea last month, and when Russia sent troops from Kharkiv to defend that important southern axis, Ukraine used fast-moving, well-co-ordinated and highly motivated units to punch holes in – and then wreak havoc behind – the enemy’s weakened lines in the east.
Russia’s collapse in Kharkiv – leaving behind scores of tanks and other armoured vehicles, big ammunition stores and an unknown number of dead, wounded and captured soldiers – is Ukraine’s biggest victory since April, when Moscow’s troops were forced to abandon their bid to seize the nation’s capital, Kyiv.
Ukraine’s advance destroyed the widely held notion that Moscow’s military was simply too big and strong to be dislodged from occupied areas, where Russian politicians, state media and local collaborators had declared that Kremlin rule was “here to stay”.
The counter-attack also gives Kyiv a platform for a potential assault on Russian-held territory in the Donbas area to the south of Kharkiv – and the tantalising hope of retaking land that was de facto controlled by Moscow since 2014, when it fomented conflict in Donbas and seized Crimea after a revolution pivoted Ukraine to the West.
“The number one task is to get back Donbas and Crimea. We will liberate them because this is all Ukraine,” Roman says by phone from a location in the Kharkiv region that he will not disclose.
We have to retake all our territory, so it’s all back under the Ukrainian flag. There is no other way
“We have to retake all our territory, so it’s all back under the Ukrainian flag. There is no other way.”
While praising its lightning advance, however, some western military experts are urging Ukraine to ensure that its rapidly moving forces do not become exhausted or strung out too thinly along supply lines that are exposed to Russian attack.
Retired US army general Mark Hertling warned on Twitter: “Don’t go too far, too fast, without thinking about everyone that’s trying to keep up (artillery, intelligence, fuel, ammo, supplies).”
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“Forces in the attack can attack for about 4-5 days without breaking down. That’s not equipment, that’s human beings. My experience ... is that units will begin to fail if they aren’t rested on day 5 of an offensive. And commanders/leaders start making really bad decisions after three days of little/no sleep,” he wrote.
“Ukrainian forces are whipped right now. Not just caused by movement & lack of sleep, but emotions associated with fighting. I anticipate some needed ‘pauses.’”
In Donbas, close to the government-held city of Slovyansk, Ukrainian soldier Anatoliy Tsymbalyuk says Russia’s defeat in nearby Kharkiv has already made life easier for his unit – and made some comrades impatient for their own chance to go on the attack.
“We’re basically holding our positions here, and we’re mostly facing artillery and missile fire in this area. But it’s much less intense than before, when the Russians were constantly shelling us and trying to push forward. Now I’d say we’re probably using more artillery than the Russians here,” he says by telephone.
“The last couple of weeks have been much quieter than before. We’re definitely feeling the benefit of what’s happened in Kharkiv,” he adds, referring to Russia’s loss of transport hubs in the region that were key links in its supply lines to Donbas.
“We know what’s happening with the counter-offensive ... and it’s very positive for our morale and it helps us hold out here. Even if we’re not moving forward now, we feel this brings our victory closer and that really helps us,” explains 57-year-old Tsymbalyuk, a lawyer who worked as a senior executive at a water firm in western Ukraine before volunteering to fight eight years ago.
“There is some impatience too,” he says.
“Among the young soldiers especially there is a desire to rush forward and attack, but I tell them that when the time is right, we will advance. For now, we have to stay and defend if necessary ... I’ve been involved in the fighting in Donbas since 2014, so I’m quite calm now – I understand that this war won’t be over quickly.”
I mean, obviously, these are some dramatic events we’re watching, but it’s war
The same message is coming from Western allies who have supplied Ukraine with billions of euro of military and other support, including advanced weaponry that Kyiv’s forces have shown they can use to crushing effect in the Kharkiv counter-offensive and in slower-moving operations in Kherson.
“It’s clear the Ukrainians have made significant progress. But I think it’s going to be a long haul,” US president Joe Biden said this week.
John Kirby, a spokesman for the White House national security council, described developments in Kharkiv as “certainly a shift in momentum by the Ukrainian armed forces.”
“I mean, obviously, these are some dramatic events we’re watching, but it’s war,” he added. “And war is unpredictable.”
Russia responded to the Kharkiv debacle – which it described officially as a planned regrouping of forces in Donbas – by pummelling the Ukrainian power system with missiles, causing blackouts in several cities and striking a major dam in Kryvyi Rih, the birthplace of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
“A vile act, which may please insane Russian propagandists, but will certainly not save the moral and psychological state of Russian soldiers. They have understood that the Russian command is incompetent, and that a rout awaits them in Ukraine on all fronts,” Zelenskiy said of the attack on his hometown.
“We are aware that the terrorist state can resort to any new vile acts. All levels of the Ukrainian authorities – both central and local, emergency services, energy firms, transport operators – are tasked with preparing for every situation. Reserves for energy, heating and water supply are needed for all possible cases.”
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The attack on Ukraine’s electricity grid was a grim reminder of the pain that Russia could inflict in the coming months, by using its still-vast arsenal of land-, sea- and air-launched missiles to destroy critical infrastructure during the winter freeze.
When Zelenskiy visited the recently liberated city of Izyum this week, local officials were already assessing the damage and planning essential repairs, as the national train and postal operators sought to restore services to the area, pensioners in parts of Kharkiv received payments for the first time after six months of occupation, and Ukrainian police returned to start investigating alleged Russian atrocities in the region.
“More than 80 per cent of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed due to Russia’s aggression. These are detached houses, apartment buildings and industrial facilities,” said Izyum councillor Maksym Strelnyk.
“The city is destroyed, but the worst thing is that winter is coming and the centralised heating system, which was used by most residents, is broken,” he added, noting that about 10,000 people are now in the city – less than a quarter of its pre-war population.
“It is necessary to estimate the cost of work and start the reconstruction of the city, for which the citizens have been waiting for so long ... The residents of Izyum can’t wait to return home, and our task is to do everything so that winter doesn’t catch us by surprise,” Strelnyk said.
There is also deep concern in Kyiv that Moscow will continue to reduce or completely halt its oil and gas flows to Europe this winter, piling pressure on industry and households and weakening the resolve of western governments to keep helping Ukraine and sanctioning Russia.
Analysts say that as well as boosting the morale of Ukraine’s troops and civilians and improving its military position before the onset of winter, the Kharkiv success was also timely proof to Kyiv’s allies that it can make full use of the weapons it receives.
In a typically blunt tweet this week, Zelenskiy’s adviser Mykhailo Podolyak listed four things that Ukraine needs “to speed up the war’s end and expel Russia from Ukraine”.
He said these were more multi-launch rocket systems for the “destruction of rear logistics”, additional tanks and armoured personnel carriers for “territory liberation”, air-defence systems for “critical infrastructure protection” and more drones for “targeting”.
“Time for the final strike against [the] Evil Empire,” he concluded.
Yet after seeing Ukraine’s flag raised over Izyum and handing awards to soldiers who helped liberate Kharkiv region, Zelenskiy appeared to acknowledge that Ukraine’s victory and the war’s end were still a long way off.
“We should send signals to our people who, unfortunately, are still under occupation. And my signal to people in Crimea: we know that these are our people, and it is a terrible tragedy that they have been under occupation for more than eight years,” he said.
“We will return there. I don’t know when exactly. But we have plans, and we will return there, because this is our land and our people.”
On a visit to Kyiv this week, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said the war was still “likely to go on for some significant period of time.”
“There are a huge number of Russian forces that are in Ukraine, and unfortunately, tragically, horrifically, president [Vladimir] Putin has demonstrated that he will throw a lot of people into this at huge cost to Russia.”
They’re demoralised, and that’s partly because they don’t know why they’re here
Hawkish figures in Russia are calling for mass mobilisation of reserves to overwhelm Ukraine’s resistance, but Putin has so far rejected a move that could turn public opinion against the war; instead, mercenary groups are playing a significant role in the Russian war effort, even recruiting prisoners from jails in exchange for a reduction in their sentence.
Russia’s apparent recruiting problems point to one area in which Ukraine’s troops – though still outnumbered and outgunned on long stretches of the frontline – believe they have a clear advantage.
“They’re demoralised, and that’s partly because they don’t know why they’re here,” says Roman.
“We’re completely different. I came from western Ukraine to eastern Ukraine with the army, because I understand that this is all Ukraine and I’m fighting for my country and my land.”
When Ukrainian soldier “Tefal” first spoke to The Irish Times in July, he was recovering from combat injuries and said he wanted to get back to the front as soon as possible. Now he is in Bakhmut in Donbas, where fighting is intense.
“It’s got a bit tougher here because the Russians seem to have sent some forces down from Kharkiv,” says Tefal, whose call-sign references a slogan that was used in Ukrainian adverts for the firm’s products: “Tefal always looks after you.”
“Sure, the news from Kharkiv raised our morale – but our spirits were already high. This is our land and our war to fight, and if we don’t win now then what will come next?” he explains.
“They don’t have much will to fight. They came for money, or because they were ordered to come, and they’re just grovelling to Putin,” Tefal says of Russian troops.
“Let’s wait until our allies give us a few more weapons and then we’ll hit them properly here in Donbas too. And then they’ll fall apart on their own. Or at least I hope they will.”
