It's hardly a blitzkrieg, and the bulk of the forces have yet to be committed, but Ukraine is recapturing settlement after settlement in its long anticipated spring counteroffensive.
A Ukrainian soldier in the newly liberated village of Blahodatne, June 17. Last year, Kyiv launched a surprise operation to recapture territory in Kharkiv Oblast from Russian forces, liberating territory roughly the size of Denmark in the space of five days. That campaign, a closely guarded secret, was unforeseen by just about everyone — especially the Russians. But it set high expectations for Ukraine’s long anticipated spring counteroffensive.
One Estonian military analyst who goes by “Karl,” told Yahoo News that a slow grind was to be expected. “The element of surprise as to where the Ukrainian counteroffensive would come from was not possible,” he said. “The Russians were waiting from all directions.” Ukraine, Karl added, “is far from having deployed all of its reserve units to the battle. At the moment, it is not a massive offensive.
Also now in Ukraine’s arsenal are U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which are capable of hitting any position in the country and have inflicted heavy losses on Russian forces.On June 12, Maj. Gen. Sergei Goryachev was killed in a Ukrainian missile strike, the first Russian general taken out in Ukraine in months. Anatoliy Shariy, a popular pro-Russian blogger, claimed the Storm Shadow was responsible.
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