Two weeks after the de facto initiation of a long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces, both sides are claiming battlefield victories in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Kyiv claimed that its troops have successfully penetrated several miles beyond Russian defense lines and have retaken several strategic positions.
Moscow countered that Kyiv’s counterattack has been stopped in its tracks—at tremendous cost to Ukrainian manpower and equipment.
According to Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Kyiv’s forces in recent days have pushed past Russian defense lines by more than four miles, retaking a total of 44 square miles of land.
“In the course of two weeks of offensive operations in the Berdiansk and Melitopol directions, eight settlements were liberated,” Maliar wrote on Telegram on June 19.
Berdiansk and Melitopol are both located in Zaporizhzhia. They also both sit on the coast of the Sea of Azov, lending credence to earlier speculation that the counteroffensive would seek to close Russia’s land corridor to Crimea.
Russia annexed the Black Sea region of Crimea in 2014. Kyiv has vowed to recover the peninsula, along with four other regions now controlled by Moscow, by force of arms.
‘Moving Forward’
Maliar also claimed that Ukrainian forces had expelled Russian troops from Piatykhatky, a small village in western Zaporizhzhia some 55 miles north of the Sea of Azov.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed the claimed battlefield victories in a video address broadcast on the evening of June 18.
“Our troops are advancing: position by position, step by step,” he said. “We are moving forward.”
On the same day, Vladimir Rogov, a prominent pro-Moscow official in Zaporizhzhia, appeared to confirm that Ukrainian forces had taken Piatykhatky—but had since been driven out again.
On Telegram, Rogov wrote that Ukrainian forces were conducting human-wave assaults, which, he conceded, “had yielded results despite [incurring] enormous losses.”
Kyiv has yet to formally announce the start of its counteroffensive, preferring instead to describe operations as “probing attacks,” or “reconnaissance in force,” aimed at finding cracks in Russian defenses.
Moscow, however, stated that Ukraine’s counteroffensive began early this month along multiple sectors of the 600-mile front line.
On June 4, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that its forces had routed a “large-scale” Ukrainian attack along five sectors of the Donetsk front.
According to the ministry, the multi-pronged assault involved six mechanized battalions and two tank battalions, much of which was destroyed by Russian air strikes and artillery.
At the time, officials in Kyiv played down the claims, accusing Moscow of spreading “false information.”
The Epoch Times was unable to verify battlefield assessments made by either side.
Moscow has also challenged Kyiv’s optimistic assessments of its latest offensive operations in Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk.
On June 18, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that multiple Ukrainian assaults in southern Donetsk, near the villages of Novodonetske and Rivnopil, had been repulsed.
A concurrent string of assaults in Zaporizhzhia, near the town of Novodarivka, was also successfully thwarted, the ministry stated in a daily briefing.
It went on to put combined Ukrainian losses in both areas at hundreds of personnel, along with dozens of tanks, armored vehicles, and other equipment.
Officials in Kyiv have yet to respond to the ministry’s claims.
‘Twists and Turns’
In recent remarks, Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that Ukraine was staging frequent assaults along multiple front-line sectors.“As we speak, another [Ukrainian counteroffensive] attempt is being made,” Putin said at a June 16 economic forum in St. Petersburg.
“The enemy is attempting to attack in several sectors with several units supported by tanks,” he added.
Regarding the Zaporizhzhia front, Putin claimed that Ukraine “has no chance of success there.”
He said, “The same is true about other [frontline] directions.”
He went on to assert that, until now, Kyiv’s counteroffensive had failed to achieve the successes that were “being reported by the [Ukrainian] military.”
Putin also claimed that Ukrainian forces were sustaining enormous losses to manpower, which he put at “more than 10-to-1 compared to the Russian army.”
For Kyiv, casualty figures are a closely guarded secret, making the Russian leader’s assertions impossible to verify.
When asked last week about Kyiv’s counteroffensive, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller declined to comment on what he called the “twists and turns of ... what is obviously a very active and ongoing situation.”
Russia invaded Ukraine early in 2022. In September, Moscow announced the annexation of four captured regions, including Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia.
Kyiv and its allies have decried the invasion and subsequent annexations as an unprovoked war of aggression and an illegal land grab.
Moscow has stated that its “special military operation” aims to protect Russian speakers in Ukraine and halt the further expansion of the NATO military alliance.
