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Ukrainian officers on the front lines said they were confident in the counterattack campaign 0
(Dan Tri) – Despite fierce fighting and heavy casualties, Ukrainian commanders say their forces are now in better shape than just a few months ago, while the Russian army seems to be the opposite.
Ukraine’s 80th Air Assault Brigade prepares for a night attack near Bakhmut on August 14 (Photo: New York Times).
`A year ago, we were still defending and doing the task of holding back the opponent. But now, we have the ability to attack,` Colonel Dmytro Lysiuk, commander of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade, said in a statement.
In interviews with the New York Times, Ukrainian officers were almost always optimistic.
Colonel Lysiuk and other commanders interviewed pointed to some encouraging changes, such as the fact that their units are better trained and equipped than ever, thanks to billions of dollars in Western aid.
They knew how to organize training for new recruits and replenish their forces after losses, even when they had to continue fighting.
The West’s longer-range artillery and especially cluster bombs – controversial weapons – supplied by the US have recently proven effective in destroying not only human resource concentrations but also military systems.
Some commanders said Russian reinforcements were holding back and were reluctant to move into range of Ukrainian artillery.
`They can’t get closer because they will be destroyed,` said Lieutenant Ashot Arutiunian, commander of a UAV unit of the Ukrainian Volunteer Army.
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`A year ago, we were still defending and doing the task of holding back the opponent. But now, we have the ability to attack,` said Colonel Dmytro Lysiuk, commander of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade.
Trust in leadership
Even if the territory cannot be quickly regained, the counteroffensive signals a change in perspective among Ukrainian soldiers.
For more than a year, units such as the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade were ordered to hold the line along the Zaporizhzhia front.
Colonel Lysiuk has been tasked with rebuilding the 128th brigade after this unit suffered heavy losses and lost its commander in December 2022.
`It’s very difficult,` Colonel Lysiuk said, `but the system has been tested.`
In June, Mr. Lysiuk’s unit took part in the first weeks of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, reclaiming several villages in a strategic area near the Dnipro River and a southern crossing leading to the Black Sea.
The Russian side has increased reinforcements.
However, Colonel Lysiuk was not discouraged.
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Empty ammunition boxes in a base of Ukraine’s 129th Territorial Defense Brigade on the southern front in Donetsk province (Photo: New York Times).
Most experienced Ukrainian commanders said that after previous counterattacks, they knew that General Valery Zaluzhny, Commander-in-Chief of Kiev’s armed forces, and the top generals under him were very good at diversion.
For example, for many months in 2022, Ukraine often talked about a counteroffensive in the southern Kherson region that would then surprise the whole world, even many members of its own military, because it might
At the same time, the counterattack in Kherson also forced the Russian army to retreat from the western Dnipro region, through the destruction of enemy supply routes.
Two successful campaigns gave many Ukrainian soldiers and officers on the front faith in General Zaluzhny’s master plan, even if the soldiers suffered huge losses, as those of the brigades leading the war.
`We were very disappointed because we thought they would crash into the sea,` said a 30-year-old deputy battalion commander of the 80th Air Assault Brigade, fighting on the eastern front.
But Tysen said he had friends fighting in the south and they remained confident.
`Tactically, in terms of diversion, and with Western equipment, the Ukrainian armed forces are gradually overcoming Russia’s defenses,` Tysen said.
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Members of the 129th Territorial Defense Brigade maintain weapons inside a kindergarten on the southern front (Photo: New York Times).
Is the Russian army weaker?
Russian forces are launching a new offensive in northeastern Ukraine toward the city of Kupiansk, but Ukrainian units say they have stopped them.
Tysen and other commanders say Russian forces appear to be in a weaker state than those in Ukraine.
`Compared to the start of the fighting, their equipment and human resources are in pretty bad shape,` Tysen assessed.
On the southern front, Ukrainian soldiers and commanders say there are signs that Ukrainian artillery is gradually wearing down the Russian units they face, largely thanks to cluster munitions from the United States.
`We are using cluster munitions quite effectively,` Colonel Lysiuk said.
Tactics are also important, said the 41-year-old deputy commander of a battalion of the 129th Territorial Defense Brigade, whose radio contact name was Kherson.
A former civil servant who joined the army in 2022, Kherson led his unit in a coordinated attack on the village of Neskuchne when the counterattack began.
`The Russian army counterattacked, tried to push us out and tried to surround us, but everything happened exactly as we planned,` Kherson said.
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Soldiers of Ukraine’s 80th Air Assault Brigade prepare to attack at night (Photo: New York Times).
Most Ukrainian commanders say their leaders care about soldiers’ lives.
Oleksii, an officer of Ukraine’s special operations forces, said his unit lost 15 people in four days of unsuccessful attacks on a village when the counterattack began.
`If we had received a more decisive order and had not allowed any other options, if we had been forced to take that village, we might have succeeded,` Oleksii said.
But instead, commanders delayed the operation, giving the Russians time to lay mines in the trenches, Oleksii said.
`If you do your best in one attack, you will lose fewer people and still get the job done,` Oleksii said.