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The Ukrainian army can expect swift retaliation from Russian forces following its counteroffensive success, according to an expert.
Marina Miron, a research fellow in the Defense Studies Department's Center for Military Ethics at King's College London, spoke to Newsweek about Ukraine's recent successes in pushing back Russian troops.
Ukraine's army has been driving forward against Russian occupiers on two fronts, in the east of the country and in the southern region of Kherson. Earlier this week, a pro-Russian Telegram channel produced a map showing Ukraine had taken significant land back from Russia in Kherson in just a few hours.
Another map, from the Institute for the Study of War think tank and AEI's Critical Threats Project, showed how Ukraine has pressed home its advantage after seizing the key eastern city of Lyman.
Miron noted that while it appears Ukraine is steamrolling through previously occupied territory, Russia is attempting to limit its losses at the moment.
"[Russian forces] are trying to concentrate their formations and save manpower. At the same time, what is happening is that they will try to retain the strategically important right bank area," she said.
"Right now the Russians are waiting for reinforcements, so they need to win time losing as few men as possible."
As the Russians falls back in the south towards the city of Kherson, they face a dilemma of either defending the west side of the Dnieper River, known as the "right bank", or withdrawing their combat forces across the river to help defend the rest of Kherson province, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said on Thursday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has annexed four partly occupied regions of Ukraine, has called up 300,000 military reservists and is counting on these reinforcements to turn the tide of the fighting in Ukraine, which has swung against Moscow in the last few weeks.
The Institute for the Study of War said in its latest assessment of the war on Wednesday that Ukrainian troops had "likely consolidated positions and regrouped in northern Kherson Oblast [province] after making major gains over in the last 48 hours. Russian sources reported Ukrainian offensive preparations northwest, west, and northeast of Kherson City."
Miron highlighted the strategic advantage of Ukraine pushing Russia back as far as it has in recent weeks.
"Ukrainian forces are trying to push the Russians back as much as possible. An important strategic direction is around Lyman.
"Taking Lyman, they might move toward Yampil in order to recapture Lysychansk and Severodonetsk. And obviously, on the Kherson front, the idea is to recapture the city of Kherson as it would also provide access to Crimea.
Miron also reflected on how Russia would likely retaliate with more men to retake the ground it had given up. However, they would also have to address the issues in their military that Ukraine has exposed.
"How far the Ukrainian forces can go remains to be seen. What is in the background now are Russian attacks with Geran' 2 drones around Kyiv (Bela Zerkva) and also attacks on Kharkiv and attempts to approach Bakhmut from the South," she said.
"So the Russians are not quite inactive and I think we will see more fierce fighting once they get more manpower in.
"The Russians seem to have identified the problems they have e.g., comms, command, leadership, equipment, logistics. It remains to be seen how quickly they can fix them.
"And on the diplomatic/informational level, there are talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons, however, it can be safely assumed that this threat exists only in the information realm as a deterrent both to the Ukrainian and the Western leadership."
Newsweek has contacted Russia and Ukraine's ministries of foreign affairs for comment.
Source: Institute for the Study of War and AEI's Critical Threats Project.
About the writer
Gerrard Kaonga is a Newsweek U.S. News Reporter and is based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on U.S. ... Read more