The Ukrainian forces continue to attack in several different directions in the third week of the counter-offensive.
Kyiv has still to achieve an operational breakthrough and is still struggling to break the first layers of the extensive Russian defensive lines.
But the Russian military is starting to feel the impact of the counteroffensive and is relocating units from other sectors of the battlefield to plug gaps.
Moving in the Reserves
The Russian military has started moving its forces from the eastern bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson to reinforce its defensive lines in Zaporizhzhia and the Donbas.
Over the past few days, the Russian military has relocated several thousand troops, including elite formations of VDV paratroopers and naval infantry.
“[The] redeployment likely reflects Russia’s perception that a major Ukrainian attack across the Dnipro is now less likely following the collapse of Kakhovka Dam and the resulting flooding,” the British Military Intelligence assesses in its latest estimate of the war.
But this could be exactly what the Ukrainian leadership has been looking to do—feigning an attack in one place to draw Russian reserves from its actual target. However, a crossing of the Dnipro River in force would amount to one of the largest amphibious operations in recent times. Although the Ukrainian military has received bridging equipment from its Western partners, it’s unclear if it has the capability to cross the Dnipro, establish a beachhead, and sustain an additional axis of advance there.
Russian Casualties in Ukraine
Meanwhile, on the ground, the Russian forces continue to take significant casualties. On the third week of the Ukrainian counteroffensive and on day 481 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the rate of Russian casualties has stabilized. Over the past few days, the Russian military, Wagner Group private military company, and pro-Russian separatist forces have been losing an average of about 650 men killed, wounded, and captured a day.
Since the Ukrainian military launched its counteroffensive, the Russian forces have lost almost 9,000 troops.
The Russian military has been losing senior officers again. Last week, the Ukrainian forces targeted and took out a command and control post in southern Ukraine, killing General Major Sergei Goryachev.
At the time of the strike, Goryachev was serving as the chief of staff of the 35th Combined Arms Army; he is the first Russian general to be killed in the war since the start of 2023. In total, the Ukrainian forces have killed more than 65 Russian senior officers thus far in the conflict. This rate of casualties among Russian generals and colonels indicates the top-heavy style of command that characterizes the Russian way of war.
Overall, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense claimed that as of Monday, Ukrainian forces have killed and wounded approximately 220,450 Russian troops, destroyed 314 fighter, attack, bomber, and transport jets, 305 attack and transport helicopters, 3,989 tanks, 3,865 artillery pieces, 7,735 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, 610 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS), 18 boats and cutters, 6,613 vehicles and fuel tanks, 370 anti-aircraft batteries, 3,383 tactical unmanned aerial systems, 526 special equipment platforms, such as bridging vehicles, and four mobile Iskander ballistic missile systems, and 1,211 cruise missiles shot down by the Ukrainian air defenses.
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.
