Ukraine has launched a long-awaited offensive operation in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, intensifying assaults around several towns in a key territory that connects a land bridge between Crimea and mainland Russia.
The operation in Zaporizhzhia follows an earlier wave of attacks this week in the southern Donetsk region and around the embattled city of Bakhmut, signalling that Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive is now in full swing.
Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Ukrainian troops were pushing ahead Thursday from the town of Orikhiv, northeast of the Russian-held city of Melitopol in Zaporizhzhia.
“The enemy is actively on the defensive,” she wrote on Telegram.
Several Russian military bloggers reported unsuccessful attempts by Ukrainian forces to break through Russian lines, losing a column of tanks and armored personnel carriers in the process.
Ukrainian forces struck from four directions, according to Russian accounts, all of which lie northeast of the city of Melitopol.
Russian blogger Yuryir Podolyak said it was “difficult to calculate losses” for Ukraine but claimed “the enemy’s losses are huge.”
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Ukrainian forces attempted to break through defenses in the Zaporizhzhia region around 1 a.m. Thursday but faced stiff resistance.
“The enemy was detected in a timely manner by the reconnaissance forces, and a preventive strike was delivered by artillery, aviation and anti-tank weapons,” he said in a statement posted by the Defense Ministry.
Shoigu claimed Ukraine lost up to 1,500 troops and 150 armored vehicles after assaulting four directions in the southern region.
Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-backed official in the Zaporizhzhia region, told Russian news agency RIA Novosti that Ukraine deployed the “maximum force” toward the town of Tokmak.
While Rogov said the first attack largely failed, he said Ukrainian forces gained a foothold near the town of Robotyne.
“Now there are continuous battles,” he told the outlet.
Russia has two connections to the Crimean Peninsula linking together vital supply routes for its military: the Kerch Strait bridge and the land bridge through the Zaporizhzhia region.
Military analysts have long assessed that Ukraine could cut off the land bridge by slicing through into the Sea of Azov and taking territory around Melitopol.
Ukraine has not acknowledged the counteroffensive has started. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said over the weekend that it would not announce the beginning of the operation.
But Ukrainian troops began marching Sunday toward Russian lines in the southern Donetsk region.
Ukrainian troops have slowly advanced in the Donetsk, pushing Russian forces back, according to Oleksandr Syrsky, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, in a Wednesday statement posted to Telegram.
Fighting is also continuing in the area surrounding the town of Velika Novosilka in southern Donetsk.