“Strategic mistakes” in counteroffensive? “It’s costing us dearly”

The Ukrainian counteroffensive is progressing slowly. Pro-Ukrainian war bloggers accuse Kiev of making mistakes. They don’t see an end to the war in 2024 either.

Ukraine has been defending itself against the Russian war of aggression for more than a year. The much-announced counter-offensive was supposed to be a liberation in the spring, or at the latest in the summer – but it is still going on. It quickly became clear to Ukraine’s Western partners that the counteroffensive was progressing more slowly than planned, despite the Ukrainian army’s consistent successes. But now Ukrainian war bloggers are accusing Kiev of serious military-strategic mistakes.

In the past four months, Ukraine has managed to clear Bakhmut “south of the city of Andriivka and Klishchivka, which opens up the possibility of another attack in the direction of the road to Horlivka,” report bloggers from the Telegram channel “DeepState”, who support the war against watching Ukraine since the Russian invasion.

The US Institute of the Study of War (ISW) also confirmed, citing geolocal images from September 30 and October 1, that Ukraine is making minor progress east and northeast of Andriivka (10 km southwest of Bakhmut).

“It cost us dearly”

But things are looking bad on the northern front of Bakhmut, according to the “Deepstate” bloggers. “The strategic mistake of venturing into Berkhivka, which is located in the lowlands, cost us dearly,” they say. The attempts to break through the enemy positions at Zaliznyanske and Razdolivka also did not bring any significant success. According to the bloggers, the Ukrainian army is probably still a long way from achieving its goal of surrounding Bakhmut. For the enemy Russia, Bakhmut is a “stronghold in which thousands of fighters are concentrated,” they write.

The spokesman for the Ukrainian Eastern Group of the Armed Forces, Ilya Yevlash, also recently stated that the Russian armed forces had concentrated over 10,000 men in Bakhmut. The information cannot be independently verified.

“Tragedy” near Donetsk and Zaporizhia?

According to the war bloggers’ analysis, the counteroffensive is going even worse south of Velyka Novosilka, on the border of the Russian-occupied Donetsk and Zaporizhia regions, towards Mariupol. The Ukrainian army has managed to take control of the village of Robotyne in Zaporizhzhia, “but so far we have not managed to take Werbowe and Kopani or drive the wedge deeper,” said the bloggers. At the end of August, Ukraine announced the successful recapture of Robotyne, and this is now considered confirmed.

According to the bloggers, breaking through the front was “successfully implemented” there, but then a “tragedy” occurred in a Ukrainian brigade, which made further offensive actions more difficult, they claim. They did not elaborate on what exactly they were referring to.

“They’re making progress”

But do other experts also share the views of “Deepstate”? Security expert Nico Lange from the Munich Security Conference’s Turnaround Initiative recently came to a slightly different conclusion in an analysis at the Kiev Talks conference. He confirmed that the Ukrainian army initially had problems in the region because the Russian defense line was heavily fortified. But for the past five to six weeks, the Ukrainians have been making steady progress, “in a laborious way, mostly on foot,” said Lange. “But they are making progress and reaching the landmarks, and the Russians are losing landmarks.”

A current analysis by the ISW supports his statements: Geolocated images published on October 2nd indicate that Ukrainian forces have advanced slightly northwest of Novomayorsk, just a few kilometers from Velyka Novosilka. Meanwhile, Russian forces made no confirmed progress. The Ukrainian counter-offensive in the region is apparently not as bad as the Ukrainian bloggers claim, although progress is slow.