At Last, the Counteroffensive

There was a significant Ukrainian counteroffensive from Zaporizhzhia/southern Donetsk region in the Vremivka Salient area towards the Sea of Azov on Sunday June 4th. Ukraine took control of Novodonestske, but a Russian counterattack pushed the Ukraine army back to the outskirts of the settlement. Russia took or retook Novodarivka and Neskuchne.

This was too large (at 3,000 men and 60 tanks) to be easily dismissed as a reconnaissance-at-force operation - Russian ministry sources say that the counteroffensive has been pushed back to its starting point, and at the cost of very heavy Ukrainian losses, amounting to 300 dead and wounded, 16 (mainly non-western) tanks of the T72 variety of Soviet-era tanks gifted by Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, 26 armoured vehicles and 14 motor vehicles. Note that Leopard tanks have been spotted along with French AMXs: 8 Leopards have been reported destroyed along with 2 ANXs. Simplicius the Thinker speculates that western tanks are being kept in the rear and will only be rolled out to the front in the event that the UAF make a decisive breakthrough of Russian fortifications, when they will be given hero status as miracle weapons - as payback to sponsors and to boost weapons arms sales.

All this has been accompanied by continuing Ukraine-led operations in Belgorod (whose protagonists won the Governor’s agreement to meet for a prisoner exchange but then did not show and professed to have handed over their prisoners to Ukrainian authorities). There is a great deal of fakery surrounding these incursions that is doubtless intended to add to a perception of a general state of confusion. An interesting counterproductive is that the Belford attacks will have consolidated Russian interest in seizing and integrating Kharkiv oblast. And it has been followed by a complex multi-dimensional range of advances launched from Vuhledar over the course of the past 24 hours, stretched along various parts of the battlefield including Marinka, Avdievka, Lyman and even Soledar-Bakhmut - advances which, according to Russian ministry sources, have been repelled.

Ukraine is not issuing statements at the current time but Russian sources claim that since the start of the offensive yesterday Ukraine has lost a total of 2,000 dead and wounded, some 25-30 armored vehicles, artillery and so forth. If Ukrainian plans, as identified in the recent Pentgon leaks, required an element of shock and awe that would seed panic and distraction among Russian forces within the opening 24 hours of the counteroffensive, then it would seem that those plans have been unsuccessful. But it is early days, Ukraine has a much larger force to draw from (including those 12 brigades that are being cossetted and preserved for the “real” counteroffensive) and the counteroffensive will likely continue for several weeks.

Ukraine’s opening salvos in its counteroffensive may have failed to live up to the promised “shock and awe,” but this should in no way encourage the expectation that at this point Ukraine has already “lost.” It has twelve brigades primed for the counteroffensive. More attacks, perhaps an intensifying volley of attacks, should be expected in the following days.

Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod, and along the front lines may be considered to be “pinning attacks” to hold down the Russian Army while the Ukrainian army launches its manor counteroffensive in southern Donetsk. So far, it appears that Russia is maintaining its focus on the main counteroffensive. The presence of General Gerasimov himself close to the main point of contact suggests that Russia may have had advance intelligence as to the start and direction of the counteroffensive, something which was indicated recently by Scott Ritter’s reference to Russia’s advanced surveillance capability by satellite networks and which relates to comments in a recent critical debunking of the Ukrainian Army in War on the Rocks, and backed up to some extent by the Royal United Services Institute, which talked of fear among Ukrainian commanders of pro-Russian collaborators or sympathizers within the ranks.

But if that was so, one wonders why the same surveillance capability is of less value in Belgorod where the Ukrainian incursions under the name of pro-Russian fascists have, at the very least, triggered significant local disruption, and cause Moscow both embarrassment and places pressure on Moscow to appease local Russian concerns. I have previously discussed different sources that Russia might look to to plug its defense deficits along the border. These include Chechnyan forces, but these are already tied up in other places along the front line; and Wagner, although these arde on R&R following Bahkmut and any action taken that might further feed Prigozhin’s exaggerated sense of self-importance at this stage would be extremely inadvisable given that he is acting as someone who not only inspires dislike and even violence against Wagner from units of the Russian army, but as someone who simply cannot be trusted and who, they say, has taken undue credit for Wagner given insufficient credit to the regular Russian army for the success in Bakhmut. The feud between Prigozhin and the Russian Ministry of Defense, and against the mysterious 72 brigade that nobody knows what exactly it is can and perhaps already is a major destabilizing factor, as serious as are the Belford attacks. It is a real problem that the Russian government seems unable or unwilling to solve this problem expeditiously.

Very latest news today June 5th is of the destruction of the dam at Nova Kakhovka. This possibility arose prior to the Ukrainian counteroffensive on Kherson last year and at that time it was difficult to work out in whose interest this would mostly work. The same ambiguity applies now although I think the fact that it may threaten both the water cooling at ZNPP and the supply of water to Crimea argue in favor of this being Ukrainian sabotage. Still, it was under Russian control and there were reports of Russian missile strikes in this area…so I don’t know. One may speculate that Ukraine was about to launch an amphibious crossing to send reinforcements of some kind further east and that destroying the dam seemed the most convenient way of putting a stop to that.

(I will likely amplify this post during the day)