As of: February 23, 2024, 5:18 a.m
By: Patrick Mayer
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Ukraine is fiercely on the defensive.
After the capture of Avdiivka, the Russian army launched a major attack towards the city of Kharkiv.
Kupyansk – Russia is apparently mercilessly exploiting the fact that Ukraine is currently militarily ailing.
As the
Institute for the Study of War (ISW)
wrote on Thursday (February 22) in an analysis of the Ukraine war, Moscow's troops have launched a "multi-axis offensive" in the northeast of the battered country.
Report on the Ukraine War: Russia launches offensive on four axes between Kupyansk and Lyman
The
ISW
stated on
The offensive is currently taking place on four axes between the focal points of Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region and Lyman in the Luhansk Oblast - and thus over a width of up to 80 kilometers.
The Russians apparently want to advance at four points in order to be able to close an entire section of the front in a second step.
There must be a lot of soldiers involved.
A Russian tank fires on enemy positions in the Kupyansk region during the Ukrainian war.
© Russian Defense Ministry/Imago
Next Russian offensive reported in Kharkiv-Luhansk sector
The “design” of this offensive and “its initial implementation mark remarkable turns in the Russian approach at the operational level,” writes the
ISW
further on the new major Russian attack in northeastern Ukraine.
Because: So far, the Russians have “either directed large masses of troops against individual targets, for example Bakhmut and Avdiivka” or launched “several attacks along axes of advance” that were “too far away for them to be able to support each other.”
In contrast, “the current Russian offensive in the Kharkiv-Luhansk sector involves attacks along four parallel axes that support each other in pursuit of multiple objectives that, taken together, are likely to yield significant operational gains,” said the widely cited US assessment -Think tank.
Ukraine War: Russia's army has gone on the offensive in many places
On Thursday evening it was not known to what extent and to what extent Kremlin autocrat Vladimir Putin's Russian invasion troops were able to gain territory on this very broad section of the front.
The fact that Kiev's land forces are currently heavily on the defensive is now an open secret.
A few days ago, Welt Live
reported from the front near Kupyansk that it was all about defending and that the Ukrainian soldiers had even set up “dragon teeth” made of concrete as anti-tank barriers.
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Meanwhile, there is a dispute in Ukraine over the apparently chaotic withdrawal from the recently abandoned industrial city of Avdiivka.
Ukrainian troops say they had to leave behind more than 800 soldiers, but the General Staff denies this.
Avdiivka fell last Saturday (February 17) after nine and a half years of fighting since the beginning of the conflict in Donbass.
Probably with significant losses for attackers and defenders.
Ukraine front: two parallel Russian offensives in the northeast and the south?
And the Russians have also gone on the offensive in the south.
Specifically: In the southern Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Vladimir Putin's troops are trying to retake positions they lost near Robotyne in the direction of the small town of Orikhiv.
As the American broadcaster
CNN
reports, Russia has gathered up to 50,000 soldiers there alone.
However, it is not known how many there are in the northeast.
Weeks ago, the
ISW
and Der
Spiegel
had written that Putin could be planning a major offensive on the second largest Ukrainian city, Kharkiv, with its around 1.5 million residents.
The current “multi-axis offensive” supports the assumptions.
(pm)