Ukraine presses on while Putin retreats: On the 224 of the war, the Ukrainian forces continue to advance in the east and the south while the Russian military seems to be in full retreat.
The Ukrainian Way of War
After weeks of successful Ukrainian counteroffensives, a pattern is emerging. The Ukrainian military has been launching a two-prong attack from the north and south, aiming at an enemy-occupied city. Once it is threatening to envelop or has enveloped the city, the Russian forces retreat, often under heavy artillery fire, and the Ukrainian military captures the city and then repeats the process.
Using this town-hopping approach, the Ukrainians have managed to liberate large swaths of territory in the east. The Ukrainian forces have already done this four times, most notably in Kupyansk, Izium, and Lyman, and are setting the conditions for repeating it two more.
The Ukrainian military now has the proper manpower and weapon systems, especially long-range precision capabilities in the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) and M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS), to fix the Russian forces on a particular position but also generate preponderant power at weak spots on the Russian defenses and achieve tactical depth penetration.
As a result, the Ukrainian forces have consolidated a large area east of the Oskil River close to Kharkiv in the east. The Russian military would have hoped to create a new defensive line on the Oskil after its harried retreat from Kharkiv, but the Ukrainian forces didn’t allow that. Now, the Ukrainians are approaching Svatove, which is a major logistical base.
“Politically, Russian leaders will highly likely be concerned that leading Ukrainian units are now approaching the borders of Luhansk Oblast, which Russia claimed to have formally annexed last Friday,” the British Military Intelligence assessed in its latest estimate of the war.
Making things worse for the Russian military is the fact that with every mile that the Ukrainians advance, they are able to bring their deadly long-range weapon systems, most notably the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) and its heavier cousin, the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS), closer to the frontlines and thus threaten additional Russian units and lines of communication and supply that were out of range previously.
The Russian Casualties in Ukraine
Overall, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense claimed that as of Wednesday, Ukrainian forces have killed approximately 61,000 Russian troops (and wounded approximately thrice that number), destroyed 266 fighter, attack, and transport jets, 232 attack and transport helicopters, 2,435 tanks, 1,414 artillery pieces, 5,038 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, 341 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS), 15 boats and cutters, 3,841 vehicles and fuel tanks, 177 anti-aircraft batteries, 1,032 tactical unmanned aerial systems, 132 special equipment platforms, such as bridging vehicles, and four mobile Iskander ballistic missile systems, and 246 cruise missiles shot down by the Ukrainian air defenses.
Expert Biography: A 19FortyFive Defense and National Security Columnist, Stavros Atlamazoglou is a seasoned defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate. His work has been featured in Business Insider, Sandboxx, and SOFREP.
