Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky acknowledged this Saturday “counter-offensive actions” by his army at the front, but he refused to specify if it is about the great attack that the Ukrainian General Staff has been preparing for months against the Russian troops.
“Counter-offensive and defensive actions are being carried out in Ukraine, which I am not going to talk about in detail,” Zelensky said at a joint press conference in Kiev with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who arrived as a surprise Saturday at the Ukrainian capital.
“You have to have confidence in our military and I have confidence in them,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that the major Ukrainian counter-offensive to repel Moscow’s troops has already begun, but he assured that the Ukrainian army did not achieve “its objective” and that they suffered heavy losses.
The Russian army reports in the last six days of intense attacks mainly on the southern front. While the spokesman for the Eastern Command of the Ukrainian army, Serguii Cherevati, reported on television on Saturday that Ukrainian troops managed to advance 1,400 meters around the town of Bakhmut after Russia claimed its capture in May.
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What is known about the Ukrainian counteroffensive
And it is that after weeks of preparation, the ukrainian army seems to have finally launched its counteroffensive to try to break through the russian defenses and score an indispensable success for the next stage of the conflict, according to analysts.
“The Ukrainian counteroffensive has begun,” numerous observers estimated this week, including the US think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which he does not expect “one big operation”, but a series of coordinated actions.
I have a feeling they will go for everything. If it works, they will negotiate in a position of strength
“In view of the use of Western materials, it seems that the Ukrainian offensive is underway,” estimated US analyst Michael Kofman, quoted by The Financial Times.
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for weeks, kyiv multiplies surprise actions to set the battlefield in its favor: drones in Moscow, attacks on Russian soil, reconnaissance operations to test the enemy’s defenses.
The main objective of this counteroffensive would be to reach the administrative border of the annexed Crimean peninsula, But first, the cities of Melitópol and Energodar, which gives access to the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, have been under Russian control for more than a year, will have to be liberated.
Ukraine has a lot at stake. The authorities know that they will not have many opportunities to repel the Russians and recover the occupied territories in the south and east of the country.
“The pressure on the Ukrainians is very strong, and perhaps we are at a turning point in the war,” a senior French army commander said on Wednesday, referring to preparatory actions that he said are part of the
counteroffensive.
“I have the feeling that they will go for everything. If it works, they will negotiate in a position of strength, and if it doesn’t work (…) in less than two years there are elections in the United States, some deposits (of Western weapons) have reached critical levels , and they know that the situation is tense,” the officer said.
(Keep reading: Has the long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive started? Here’s what kyiv and Moscow say)
For the Ukrainians, “the initial operations of the counteroffensive could be the most difficult and the slowest,” according to the ISW.
“Initial setbacks are expected” before they can break through the defense lines, which the Russians have established and consolidated for months.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With AFP and EFE
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