Ukraine Launches Missile Strikes on Russia Across 'Entire Front'—ISW

Ukraine has launched a wave of coordinated missile attacks across the "entire front," a think tank said Wednesday, amid Kyiv's counteroffensive.

The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think tank, said in its latest analysis of the conflict in Ukraine that geolocated footage and images indicate that Ukrainian forces targeted Russian logistics across the front line overnight and during the day on Wednesday.

The assessment came as Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine's Security and Defense Council, gave an update on Kyiv's counteroffensive, which seeks to wear down Moscow's forces and recapture Russian-occupied territory. He said Ukraine's focus was currently on destroying Russian equipment and personnel and that the past few days of fighting had been particularly "fruitful," without elaborating.

Geolocated footage and images published this week indicated that Ukrainian forces struck an ammunition depot in Makiivka and a Russian-occupation administration building in Volnovakha, both in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, as well as Russian positions near Debaltseve, 32 miles northeast of the city of Donetsk and a railway station in Yasynuvata, also near the regional capital.

Russian milbloggers also said that Ukrainian forces had struck Russian positions near Melitopol and attempted to strike Berdyansk in the Zaporizhzhia region with U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles. Russian sources also said that Russian air-defense systems shot down a Ukrainian missile in the vicinity of Berdyansk. A local Telegram channel also said that Russian air defenses were activated near Skadovsk, in the Kherson region, the ISW said.

"The footage and claims of these Ukrainian strikes suggest that Ukrainian forces launched a coordinated series of strikes aimed at degrading Russian logistics and ground lines of communication (GLOCs) throughout the theater," the ISW said.

The think tank noted that on Tuesday, U.K. Chief of the Defense Staff Admiral Sir Antony David Radakin said that Ukrainian forces were conducting an operation to "starve, stretch, and strike" Russian forces to break down their defensive lines.

"A widespread strike series targeting Russian GLOCs and logistics would be an appropriate element of such a strategy and is partially reminiscent of the interdiction campaign that Ukrainian forces conducted as a part of the Kherson counteroffensive," the ISW said.

On Wednesday, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said on her Telegram channel that Ukrainian forces were "hitting the enemy in the east so powerfully that in some areas their military units have begun to leave their positions as whole units," adding that there was fierce fighting ongoing in the Bakhmut direction.

Russia's state-run news agency Tass cited the press service of a Russian unit as saying that Ukraine's forces lost fighters as they attempted to attack in the direction of Kupyansk, a city in the eastern Kharkiv region.

Newsweek has contacted Russia's Defense Ministry via email for comment.

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