Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned several times since March that he expects a major Russian offensive that could begin in May or June. Ukrainian experts and military officials are now warning that it could start even sooner, writes the Ukrainian publication “Kyiv Independent”.
“The Russian military likely assessed that Ukrainian forces would be unable to defend themselves against current and future Russian offensive operations due to a delay or permanent termination of US military aid,” the US-based think tank, the Institute for war study (WW), shortly before the US Congress approved a new military aid package for Kiev earlier this week. “This assumption was likely an integral part of Russia’s operational planning for this summer,” the organization added.
Why is Chasov Yar important?
According to the Kyiv Independent, all eyes are currently on the axis in the direction of Bakhmut as Russian troops gradually close in on the depleted town of Chasov Yar, just 10 kilometers west of occupied and largely destroyed Bakhmut.
“Chasov Yar is located in a high place. If Russia succeeds in capturing the city, they (Russian forces) may be able to increase the speed of their advance,” US-based military expert Rob Lee, a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia program, told the publication, BTA reported.
The Ukrainian military recently even warned that Russia was aiming to capture Chasov Yar before May 9, when Moscow celebrates Victory Day, marking the country’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.
“If Russian forces take Chasov Yar, they will have a position from which to launch follow-up offensive operations towards Konstantinovka and Krushivka,” IIV analyst Riley Bailey told Reuters. “These are large cities that form the backbone of Ukrainian defenses. And that would be very important,” he added.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrsky said as early as April 13 that the situation on the front line “has significantly worsened in recent days” as dry weather facilitates Russian attacks on the eastern front, the “Kyiv Independent” recalls.
Recent hostilities have been focused on the Bakhmut, Liman and Pokrovsk sectors — spreading from the middle of Donetsk Oblast near Russian-occupied Avdeyevka to the northern part of the region, Sirsky said.
Moscow has had the advantage on the battlefield since it captured Avdeyevka, a long-time bastion city in the eastern Donbas region, in February, and its forces have been slowly advancing, using larger numbers of troops and artillery shells, the Kyiv Independent commented.
Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence, told the publication that Moscow is focused on the complete capture of eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions – Donbass. “Russia is attacking on three fronts there – west of Avdeevka, from Kupyansk to Liman and west of Bakhmut,” he added.
In the south, it has focused on Robotyne, the village captured by Kiev in last year’s offensive, Yusov said.
With the weather improving a bit earlier than usual, Russia is now set to step up its push further east, but whether it will focus on one specific area or seek to apply pressure on multiple points remains to be seen , Western and Ukrainian military experts commented to the “Kyiv Independent”.
The American think tank also warned that Moscow’s army plans to launch a large-scale offensive when the weather conditions on the front improve, Euronews reported. The IIV reported that this could happen in the coming weeks.
Is Kharkiv the target of the offensive?
Russian troops will strike unexpected parts of the front during their summer offensive in Ukraine and may try to advance towards the northeastern city of Kharkiv, the commander of the National Guard of Ukraine, Oleksandr Pivnenko, told Liga.net, quoted by Reuters.
The country’s second-largest city has come under fire from missiles and drones in recent weeks, but Kiev’s forces will be prepared to thwart any attack, he stressed.
“We are preparing. Yes, the enemy will give us unpleasant surprises. It will operate in areas where we do not expect it. But it will not achieve its goal,” Pivnenko pointed out and said he foresees “some difficulties” for Kiev’s troops, but Russian forces will not achieve decisive victories.
“Maybe they will be able to meet 10-15% of their goals. But this will not be a strategic victory,” Pivnenko is emphatic.
He expects Russian troops to continue hitting Kharkiv’s critical infrastructure, much of which has already been damaged or destroyed in Russian strikes, but not to take the city.
According to American television ABC, nearly 200,000 residents in Kharkiv are without electricity, and 50% of the district’s population still suffers from power outages. Russia is continuing with the deadly airstrikes to drive more residents out of the city, the American media commented. Some officials and analysts warn it could be a concerted effort by Moscow to set the stage for a summer offensive to retake the city.
The attacks, which began on March 22, destroyed Kharkiv’s ability to produce and supply electricity. Rockets fired from Belgorod take 30 seconds to reach their targets in Kharkiv, just 30 kilometers away. Thirty seconds is about the same time it takes for air defense systems to respond. In the latest barrage, Russia fired 22 missiles simultaneously to disrupt and disorient those defenses, Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleg Sinegubov said, as quoted by ABC.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also appeared to signal Russia’s intention to capture the city of Kharkiv in a future major Russian offensive, Ukraine’s Odessa Journal reported. He became the first senior Kremlin official to directly identify the city as a possible Russian operational target after the recent Ukrainian warnings that Russian forces may attempt to capture Kharkiv in the early summer of 2024.
Lavrov said in a radio interview with several prominent Russian state propagandists on April 19 that Kharkiv “plays an important role” in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s idea of creating a demilitarized “sanitary zone” in Ukraine to protect Russian border settlements from Ukrainian strikes. The Russian foreign minister also pointed out that the president has made it very clear that Russian forces must push the front line far enough into Ukraine to put Russian settlements beyond the range of Ukrainian strikes.
In response to a question about where Russian forces would go after the creation of a “sanitary zone”, Lavrov added that Moscow was “fully convinced” of the need to continue the war against Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, have also recently identified the threat of a possible Russian summer offensive aimed at capturing the city of Kharkiv. However, military intelligence in Kiev called the rumors of an upcoming offensive a “psychological operation” to sow panic, ABC reported.
The chances of the Ukrainian army holding back the advance
Amid fears of an offensive by the Russian military, Ukraine is grappling with acute shortages of vital supplies, including ammunition for its artillery systems and interceptor missiles for its air defenses, Newsweek reported.
After six months of wrangling, the US Congress in recent days approved a $61 billion military aid package for Ukraine. With it, Kiev’s critically low stocks of artillery shells and anti-aircraft defenses will be replenished, Reuters recalls.
The influx of weapons should improve Kiev’s chances of preventing a major Russian breakthrough in the east, said two military analysts, a former Ukrainian defense minister and a European security official. But Ukraine still faces a shortage of manpower on the battlefield, while questions remain about the strength of its fortifications along the stretched 1,000km front line ahead of a possible Russian summer offensive.
“The most important source of Ukrainian weakness is the lack of manpower,” Konrad Muzyka, director of the Rochan military consultancy in Poland, told Reuters.
After months of debate, a law signed by Zelensky on April 16 went into effect in May to overhaul the rules governing how Ukraine mobilizes civilians into the military, with the goal of making the process faster, more transparent and efficient. But the new recruits will need months of training before they can be deployed to the front, which in turn creates a “window of opportunity” for Russia to take advantage of, Muzyka warned. “I would expect the situation to probably continue to deteriorate in the coming years three months, but if the mobilization goes according to plan and US aid is unblocked, then the situation should improve from autumn onwards,” he said.
“Essentially what we see in 2024 is as strong a defensive posture as possible, but we have to accept that the Ukrainians are likely to lose some ground to the Russians,” said Matthew Savile, a military affairs specialist at the London-based think tank. RUSSI.
“This is the result of last year’s Ukrainian counter-offensive, which proved impossible to significantly break through Russian lines due to the concentration of Russian forces and the long delay in the approval of US military aid,” he explained.
And other military analysts are pessimistic about the performance of Kiev’s forces on the battlefield in 2024. “Ukraine will almost certainly continue to lose some ground in some places, but it will be one kilometer here, five kilometers there,” Yakub told Reuters Janovsky, a Prague-based military analyst.
Only Ukrainian courage and resilience, as well as mistakes by Russian commanders, can now change the grim dynamic, Politico reported, citing an anonymous senior military source.
