As of September 2nd, 2023, the Russo-Ukrainian war enters its 556th day, just four-and-a-half months shy of the 2nd anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Over the summer, Ukrainian forces engaged in a counter-offensive across five separate fronts, a bevy of strategic Ukrainian drone-strikes across Moscow and the attempted coup, and subsequent death of Yevgeny Prighozin, leader of the private military company, Wagner Group.
Since June 4th of 2023, a Ukrainian counter-offensive has been slowly, but steadily, reclaiming small stretches of territory previously claimed by Russian Armed Forces (RAF).
As of yet, no major settlements like Bakhmut or Mariupol have been retaken, but Ukrainian forces have recaptured a dozen or so smaller villages under RAF control, most notably the village of Robotyne in the Zaporizhzhia region.
Robotyne was captured as Ukrainian forces breached several kilometers of first-line RAF defenses, and reports state that Ukrainian forces are using it as a staging ground for their attacks on the neighboring villages of Verbove and Novoprokopivka, with the goal of moving further into RAF territory towards the Sea of Azov.
While this is a victory for Ukrainian forces, analysts like Tomasz Bluseiwicz, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution say, “Ukraine’s progress is impressing him, but he does not expect a major breakthrough anytime soon.”
Bluseiwicz and other analysts have doubts that often stem from concerns on whether Ukrainian forces can continue to hold the entrenched positions they have captured, and the sheer difficulty of penetrating the major defensive Russian fortifications that now lie ahead of them as they continue to advance further towards the south of the Sea of Azov.
It seems Kyiv’s goal with the counter-offensive is to continue the advancement of Ukrainian forces to the south of the Sea of Azov in a bid to ‘sever’ the land bridge connecting Russia and annexed Crimea, creating a supply chain break-down between Russia and the annexed territory.
In the midst of their counter-offensive, Ukraine has been employing a mixture of short and long-range drones to conduct a number of strategic attacks throughout Moscow, including an attempted attack on the Kremlin on May 3rd, 2023 and a successful destruction of a supersonic bomber on August 22nd of 2023.
While many of these attacks are unsuccessful, the strikes have increasingly intensified over the summer and are conducted with more regularity, although as of now, no deaths have been reported as a result of these strikes.
Ukrainian officials have not claimed direct responsibility for these attacks, but those like Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence service, the G.U.R., say, “Russian elites and ordinary Russians now understand that war is not somewhere far away on the territory of Ukraine … war is also in Moscow, it’s already on their territory.”
On August 23rd, 2023 Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the private military company The Wagner Group, was amongst a group of seven passengers and three crew members that died in a plane crash that occurred in northwest Moscow.
Prigozhin was an extremely controversial figure, even by the opinions of Russian officials and citizens, which only grew worse after his troops seizure of key military sites and engaging in an open rebellion against the Kremlin in June.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is nearing its two-year anniversary, and it seems as though it will grow only bleaker as another long and cold winter threatens to blanket the war-front, and further cripple Ukraine’s already diminished food, energy and security infrastructure.
