For months, Kiev has claimed to be preparing a counter-offensive and, at the end of the week, President Zelensky said that the country was ready. On Monday, Russia claims to have repelled a "large-scale offensive" in the south of the Donetsk region. Is this the beginning of this operation?
"On the morning of June 4, the enemy launched a large-scale offensive in five sectors of the front in the direction of the southern Donetsk region," the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement, without specifying the exact location of the battle. According to the ministry, the Ukrainians have tried to break through Russian defenses in what Kiev considers the most vulnerable part of the front line.
But still, according to the ministry, "the enemy has not achieved its goal, it has not succeeded," he added, accompanying his announcement with a video showing what are presented as Ukrainian tanks filmed from the air being destroyed by Russian forces. 250 Ukrainian soldiers and 16 tanks were reportedly destroyed. According to the Russian ministry, the Ukrainian army carried out the offensive with six mechanized battalions and two tank battalions.
Il comando russo annuncia di aver respinto, ieri, una puntata offensiva delle forze ucraine a sud ovest di Donetsk. È stato pubblicato questo video. https://t.co/KHey49bgIU pic.twitter.com/IWBnVRHMEz
— Marco Bordoni (@bordoni_russia) June 5, 2023
In Kiev, there is no question of confirming this attack. Kiev officials have warned against public speculation about the offensive, saying it could help the enemy. "Plans love silence. There will be no announcement of departure," the Defense Ministry said Sunday in a video posted on Telegram. The footage shows masked and well-armed Ukrainian soldiers holding their fingers to their lips.
Ukrainian Armed Forces ask for silence in the information space 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/xoFHubylpV
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) June 4, 2023
The beginning of the counter-offensive
Still, the stakes of this counter-offensive, if confirmed, are important. Kiev must show the Ukrainian people but also its Western supporters that this operation is well prepared with convincing results by piercing the Russian lines to retake part of its territory.
Conversely, Moscow must show its ability not to give up ground under the leadership of the high command of the armed forces. So much so that the Kremlin insisted that the Chief of Staff of the Russian army, General Valery Gerasimov, "was during this period at one of the forward command posts" in Donetsk. But General Gerasimov, appointed in January "commander of the combined group of troops" deployed in Ukraine, is regularly the target of criticism or insults from the boss of the paramilitary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin. The latter accuses him of being responsible, with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, for the "tens of thousands" of Russian fighters killed or wounded in Ukraine by depriving them of ammunition.
Still attacks in Belgorod region
In addition to the Ukrainian attack in the Donbass announced by Moscow, fighting took place Sunday in the Russian region of Belgorod, bordering Ukraine, between the Russian army and pro-Ukrainian Russian fighters, according to the regional governor. "A sabotage group has arrived, there is fighting in Novaya Tavoljanka," a border village, Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram. "I hope they will all be destroyed." He added that the attackers, whom he described as Russian fighters engaged alongside Kiev, had taken prisoners and offered an exchange.
One of these pro-Ukrainian groups, the "Freedom Legion for Russia" has, in fact, assured to transfer the prisoners it holds to the Ukrainian authorities, who regularly organize prisoner exchanges with Russian forces. This is the first time that a Russian official has admitted that Russian fighters have been captured on Russian territory itself, after more than 15 months of fighting on Ukrainian territory. The Russian military later claimed to have repelled a "sabotage group composed of Ukrainian terrorists" that sought to cross the border. "The enemy was hit by our artillery. He dispersed and retreated," the army wrote in a statement.
The fighting around Novaya Tavolzhanka follows an incursion by pro-Ukrainian forces into the Belgorod region last month, which forced Moscow to use its artillery and air force on its own soil. The border violation was claimed by groups of anti-Kremlin Russian nationalists. Villages near the border have been heavily bombed by Ukraine for the past week, forcing thousands to flee to Belgorod, the region's major city.