Ukrainian forces advance on Russians, deny ‘counteroffensive’ has begun
But Ukrainian officials denied claims by Moscow that they had launched the counteroffensive — and that Russian troops had thwarted it.
A spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry said Ukrainian forces had started the counteroffensive by trying to push through five areas of the Russian line in Donetsk but had been repelled. The statement by Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, in a video posted by the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti, could not be verified.
Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesman for the Ukrainian army’s eastern command, called the Russian claim “delusional.” Maliar denied that the operation to push Russian forces back and eventually out of Ukraine was underway. Any offensive efforts, she said, were confined to an ongoing push around Bakhmut, the regional capital of Donetsk.
Ukrainian forces advanced between 200 and 1,600 meters in the area near the town of Orikhovo-Vasylivka and in Paraskoviivka, north of Bakhmut, Maliar said. Soldiers pushed between 100 and 700 meters near Ivanivske, also close to Bakhmut, she said.
Ukrainian officials have cautioned repeatedly in recent days that no single action would mark the start of the counterattack, nor would it be announced. But military analysts on Monday said the front-line activity could indicate its early stages.
An officer in a Ukrainian assault brigade in the southeast region told The Washington Post the counteroffensive has begun and his unit is ready to join. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to provide details. A unit near his pushed ahead yesterday, he said, and destroyed eight Russian tanks. For now, he said, Ukraine is focused on reconnaissance operations, “but the pace will increase every day.”
“The Armed Forces of Ukraine are now shaking the enemy’s defenses along the entire front, conducting combat reconnaissance, looking for weak points,” the officer said. “At the same time, rocket artillery units are destroying warehouses, Russian military command bodies, and logistics chains.”
At least one brigade in the southern Donetsk region is launching an offensive operation, according to a military official in the region who also spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The units conducting offensive operations near Bakhmut and in southern Donetsk on Monday were not among the specialized brigades, some recently trained by NATO, that are expected to lead the counteroffensive as the so-called tip of the spear.
Some U.S. officials believe the counteroffensive is underway — and going well for Ukraine. They point to the territorial gains made by Ukrainian forces north and south of Bakhmut and strikes deep behind Russian lines.
U.S. officials caution that a successful offensive might look very different from traditional conventional operations, in which armored columns fight to penetrate enemy ground. It could involve instead what U.S. officials call modern maneuver warfare, which includes expanded artillery fire, probing attacks, and sabotage or partisan activity behind enemy lines. They hope such actions, enabled by NATO training and arms supplies, will pressure Russian troops to make mistakes and provide Ukrainian forces opportunities to advance.
When asked at the White House House whether the counteroffensive had begun, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said he would not be speaking for the Ukrainian military.
“They’re conducting some offensive operations,” he said. “That’s for them to speak to.”
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War wrote that Russian and Ukrainian officials were signaling that it had begun. The think tank said it has “observed increased combat activity in different sectors of the front line and assesses that Ukrainian forces are making territorial gains despite Russian claims to the contrary.”
Michael Kofman, a Russian military analyst at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security, said the activity in the past day or so “is probably the early phase of a Ukrainian offensive operation, but it does not appear to be the main effort.”
The offensive is expected to unfold over the course of months, not days. But the latest operations, Kofman said, are “a significant change in the fighting compared to what we’ve seen over the past month.”
Cherevatyi, the eastern command spokesman, denied that the counteroffensive had started.
“In reality, when this starts, everyone will know about it,” he told The Post. He said the operation would hinge on an element of surprise, like the lightning strike last fall that pushed Russian forces out of positions in the northeast Kharkiv region.
“It will be like Kharkiv,” Cherevatyi said. “Fast, effective and obvious to them and everyone else.”
Before the push through Kharkiv last September, Ukraine maneuvered its forces to suggest preparations for an attack in the Kherson region to the south. Kyiv later admitted that it was an intentional diversion. A counterattack in Kherson then followed in November.
“The position of the state is to not admit the counteroffensive and to not tie it to a specific date,” Interior Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko told The Post. “Because if it does that, it will demotivate people and will be a source of manipulation. So therefore it is ongoing.”
Ukraine’s military on Sunday released a video of soldiers putting fingers to their lips, remaining silent. “Shhhhhh,” the Defense Ministry tweeted Monday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked troops around Bakhmut for their advances against Russian forces. “I am grateful to each of our soldiers, all our defenders … who on this day gave us exactly the news we expect. [Those in the] Bakhmut direction — well done, soldiers,” Zelensky said Monday in his nightly address, posted on Telegram.
Ukrainian advances followed attacks by anti-Russian forces against at least 10 villages in Russia’s Belgorod region earlier Monday, its governor said, an escalation in cross-border fighting.
Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov blamed the attacks on Ukraine’s military, but two anti-Putin paramilitary groups claimed credit for them.
The fighting appeared to intensify Monday as a power facility caught fire following a drone attack. The Russian town of Shebekino, located about four miles from the Ukrainian border, also came under heavy shelling, residents told Radio Free Europe.
The pro-Ukrainian militias, which claimed to have carried out a series of cross-border incursions in recent days, said their forces mounted another attack on government facilities and took Russian soldiers prisoner over the weekend.
Gladkov said Sunday that he was willing to meet an opposition group that had taken prisoners from the region. But the governor skipped the meeting, according to the Russian Volunteer Corps, one of two anti-Kremlin militia groups operating on Russian soil in support of Ukraine.
Kyiv has denied any involvement in the attacks on Russian soil and sought to distance it from the groups.
But in a jab at Moscow, Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov told Ukrainian national television on Saturday that Russia was unable to quash the paramilitary attacks because its security forces were trained only “to beat the participants of peaceful protests.”
Ilya Ponomarev, a founder of the Free Russia Legion, the second militia group, claimed that anti-Putin forces now control about a dozen settlements in Belgorod region.
Ponomarev said the Free Russia Legion is operating in Shebekino. Russian authorities have said the town is being hit by Ukrainian armed forces from across the border.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Monday its forces had stopped an attempt by “Ukrainian terrorists” on Sunday to enter Novaya Tavolzhanka via the nearby Seversky Donets River, which crosses into Russia from Ukraine. The ministry said Russia had 10 of the attackers.
But Russian authorities could not enter Novoya Tavolzhanka, Gladkov said Monday night on social media. That appeared to confirm claims by the militias that they were in control of the settlement — and that Russia’s border security measures were insufficient for the second time in two weeks.
The Russian ranks appeared to be in disarray.
Some pro-war Russian bloggers dubbed the area the “Belgorod front line,” underscoring the blowback of Moscow’s stalling invasion of Ukraine, with active fighting underway on Russian soil.
At least 4,000 people, roughly 10 percent of Shebekino’s population, have evacuated in recent days. Many are now housed in shelters in the regional capital of Belgorod city, Gladkov said. At least 10 have people died, and dozens have been hospitalized with blast injuries in the past week, local media reported.
In Belgorod and two other border regions, local radio stations broadcast a fake announcement from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who urged listeners to evacuate “deeper into the country immediately” and announced a general mobilization “to defeat the cunning and dangerous enemy.”
“The purpose of the message is to sow panic among peaceful Belgorod residents,” local authorities said.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Monday that the radio stations were hacked, but broadcasters had since “regained control.”
In another bizarre turn, the months-long feud between Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeniy Prigozhin and Russia’s Defense Ministry appeared to have moved beyond rhetoric.
Prigozhin accused the regular military of placing explosives on roads used by the mercenaries to retreat from Bakhmut. Russia recently captured the eastern Ukrainian city after a months-long siege led by Wagner.
On Sunday, Prigozhin posted a statement saying that Russian soldiers shelled his Wagner fighters as they demined the roads. He claimed the alleged attack was repelled, and Wagner detained Lt. Col. Roman Venevitin of Russia’s 72nd Motorized Rifle Brigade.
Shortly after, Prigozhin’s press service posted a video showing what appeared to be Venevitin confessing that he had ordered his troops to shoot at Wagner mercenaries “in a state of intoxication and out of personal enmity.”
Prigozhin’s claims could not be independently verified, and the Russian Defense Ministry did not publicly comment on the accusations.
Ilyushina reported from Riga, Latvia. Serhii Korolchuk in Dnipro, Kamila Hrabchuk in Kyiv, and Missy Ryan and Matt Viser in Washington contributed to this report.
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