Ukraine Counteroffensive Achieves Breakthrough Zelensky Desperately Needed

Ukraine has said that its forces have recaptured the village of Urozhaine from Russian troops, delivering an important boost to President Volodymyr Zelensky more than two months into his troops' counteroffensive.

The village in the Donetsk oblast is part of a group of small rural settlements that Ukraine has declared liberated since the push aimed at recapturing occupied territory started around June 4.

Kyiv has admitted its counteroffensive is going more slowly than expected and Urozhaine is the first village it said it had retaken since July 27 when it announced the recapture of neighbouring Staromaiorske.

"Urozhaine has been liberated," was the succinct Telegram message of Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar, who added, "Our defenders are entrenched at the outskirts."

The Russian Defense Ministry, which Newsweek has emailed for comment, has not confirmed losing the settlement, but said on Telegram that its artillery and aircraft were continuing their attack on Ukrainian troops in the Urozhaine area.

Located north of Russia's defensive line and on the road to the occupied city of Mariupol on the north coast of the Sea of Azov, the gain is likely to give Ukraine's forces and population a tonic after their tough fight in trying to breach the first line of Russia's fortifications.

"It's an important reconquest but in very relative terms," said Nicolò Fasola, a research fellow at the University of Bologna in Italy, whose work focuses on Russia's military strategies, as he noted that the settlement's pre-war population was only around 1,000.

"This is a propaganda and information win for Ukraine to the extent that it can provide the West with a tangible result, saying, 'We're doing well, please keep supporting us,'" he told Newsweek.

Fasola said it was also timely amid spreading discontent about how the counteroffensive was going and Zelensky diverting attention from what was happening on the front line by firing the conscription center managers for allegedly taking bribes and smuggling people out of the country.

"The victory over Urozhaine can be used successfully to give one more reason to the Ukrainians to keep fighting," he said, "from that perspective, it's important."

Urozhaine is still around 5 miles north of the so-called Surovikin Line defenses constructed since late 2022, initially under the direction of General Sergei Surovikin, who is reportedly now under house arrest.

Citing military bloggers, former Ukrainian presidential adviser Iuliia Mendel said on X (formerly Twitter) Urozhaine plays an important role in local Russian supply networks, "suggesting its fall would complicate Moscow's defense of the wider area."

The New York Times reported last week that if Russian troops retreated from the area, they would have to move positions to the second line of defense farther south, towards Staromlynivka. This would put Kyiv's forces only 50 miles from Berdyansk and Mariupol on the Azov Sea coast, indicating that Ukraine is continuing its offensive drive south towards the sea.

"It's a further step into the Russian defensive lines," Fasola told Newsweek, "so that's an indicator that Ukraine has been able to successfully carry out the testing of the Russian frontline and defenses and has been able to identify a weak spot in those defenses."

"That weakness can be also further exploited to thrust deeper towards Mariupol, cutting in half the southeastern Ukrainian territory that Russia has conquered over the last year."

Getting to the city would allow Kyiv's forces to gain a stronghold on the inner Black Sea. However even if Kyiv's troops do not reach Mariupol, "this reconquest of Urozhaine will allow Ukraine to shoot at Russian positions more in depth," said Fasola, with Zelensky's troops able to use Western-supplied ammunition and artillery pieces.