The Ukrainian counteroffensive has begun, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy acknowledged yesterday, although he did so in somewhat cryptic terms when he said that “counteroffensive and defensive actions are taking place.” The Russian president himself, Vladimir Putin, had said on Friday, in a video recording, that the Ukrainian counter-offensive had begun.
The Ukrainian president spoke yesterday during an appearance alongside the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, on a visit to Kyiv. Trudeau announced additional military aid from his country worth 500 million Canadian dollars (348 million euros). The aid includes a hundred Roshel armored vehicles – made in Canada – for the infantry, support for the maintenance of Leopard tanks that is carried out in Poland and 288 air-to-air missiles of the Sparrow type, with which it must be assumed that they would be equipped the F-16 fighter jets that the Ukrainian Air Force expects to receive. Canada, Trudeau said, will also take part in training Ukrainian pilots.
Zelenski was careful to point out that no details of the course of operations on the front would be given, which leaves the narrative in the hands of Russia’s version and that of the British Ministry of Defense, for now.
Moscow says it is holding back the Ukrainian onslaught, and the Ministry of Defense yesterday released a video showing a column of destroyed and smoking Western tanks and armored vehicles in southern Donetsk province.
London, for its part, said that the Ukrainians are doing well in some areas and not so well in others. “In some areas the Ukrainian forces have made good progress and penetrated the first line of Russian defenses; in others progress has been slower”, said a statement from the British Ministry of Defence. As for the Russian side, he added, “some units seem to be carrying out credible defensive maneuvers, while others have retreated in some disorder”, which has led to “casualties in the retreat to their own fields of mines”.
Apparently, on the Bakhmut front Ukrainian troops would be advancing on the outskirts of the disputed city – 1,400 meters, Ukrainian official sources said – but in the main effort of the attack, in the Zaporizhzhya region, in the south of the country, the apparent main target of the counter-offensive, would be more engaged, although they would be carrying out long-range artillery attacks on the Russian rear, a move that otherwise does not represent anything new.
Russian airstrikes continued yesterday, with a salvo of missiles and drones targeting a Ukrainian airfield in the Poltava region in the center of the country, after a long (about six hours) and heavy bombardment with cruise missiles and drones on the city of Odessa, which caused three deaths and 27 injuries, including three children, despite the fact that the defenses shot down most of the missiles and drones. The remains of a downed drone fell into an apartment building.
