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Throughout the summer, I repeatedly heard the same question, which I tried to answer as diversely as possible, but with unchanged essence. Read more in the exclusive blog for Channel 24 website.
The counteroffensive did not start yesterday
And then… And then I just got tired and started rebroadcasting the same mantra. And the question was: when should we expect a counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine?
And now, watching the events in the Kherson and Kharkov regions, especially attentive ones are still watching the Donetsk and, for some time now, Luhansk regions, the question has somewhat modified itself, representing: well, what, has it begun? In fact, no, it has not begun, but continues.
The fact is that many perceive the counteroffensive as some kind of event that is clear, obvious and large-scale. Slender ranks go to the bayonet, hundreds of tanks in the frontal, the planes fly – the planes are bombed, and the general on a white horse is watching this process. But, to disappointment, the modern counteroffensive has nothing to do with this medieval anachronism.
The counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine began last spring, when Russian units began to push out of the northern bridgehead and, to the best of their ability, in other directions. After all, Chernihiv, Sumy and Kyiv regions did not quit on their own. Posad-Pokrovskoye was also fired not by magic. The Ukrainian Armed Forces crossed the Ingulets and occupied the bridgehead on the left bank last summer, not because they got lost. The Russians were pushed back to the Cossack Lopan not because it just happened. These were the components of the counter-offensive process.
Cats and mice are not in favor of the infidels
From the first days of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, they used defensive tactics of warfare and, being 80% on the defensive, only in 20% of cases went over to the counteroffensive. But they crossed on time and accurately, exactly in those places and directions where the enemy was weakened and could not hold the line. And now the Russian occupying forces are weakened like never before.
Lack of ammunition, depletion of human resources, logistical problems and the impossibility of not only attacking in all or limited directions, but even holding the line.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine can now play the Russian occupiers like a cat with a mouse, forcing them to overturn their limited troops from one bridgehead to another in an attempt to plug holes and gaps in the defense. And, having forced the Russians to overtake a serious grouping to the south, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, through the hands of the invaders, weakened their Kharkov grouping so much that its advanced units simply could not hold back the defense.
What is most interesting, in the south, the Russians concentrated units in conditions that are logistically extremely unacceptable and extremely vulnerable, while at the Kharkiv bridgehead the logistics are much better than in Kherson. In addition, on the Kherson bridgehead, especially on the right bank, Russian units and facilities turned out to be in full view for delivering regular, methodical strikes by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
By the way, methodical strikes against Russian military infrastructure were also an integral part of the counteroffensive , actually exhausting and bleeding the capabilities of the Russian occupation forces. Bringing their offensive potential to zero, and their defensive potential to a minimum level.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces know how to surprise
Taking into account the fact that the command of the Russian occupation forces deployed relocation of their units to the south, weakening the Donbass bridgehead and Kharkov in particular, it can be assumed that they did not fully realize how this could end for them, namely, a cascading collapse of the defense from the Kherson region. to the Kharkiv region.
But it should be understood that now we are not observing the final stage of the counteroffensive, but only one of them. Therefore, a counteroffensive is all the same both a set of progressive actions and patience.
