Since Ukraine launched its counteroffensive against Russia early last month, it has consistently claimed that its forces were making slow but steady advances.
Moscow, however, disputes that assertion, saying the much-anticipated counterattack has entirely failed to meet its objectives.
On July 24, Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, said Ukrainian forces had retaken 75 square miles in the southern theater (Kherson and Zaporizhzhia) since the counteroffensive began in early July.
In a video message, Ms. Maliar said Ukrainian troops were advancing—in several areas—toward Zaporizhzhia’s southern cities of Melitopol and Berdiansk.
Kyiv further asserts that, in the same period, its forces have recaptured 20 square miles in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Russia effectively annexed all four regions last September. Since then, it has reinforced its defensive lines—with minefields, trenches, and other barriers—in anticipation of Kyiv’s counterattack.
On July 25, Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Kovaliov said Ukrainian troops are advancing toward the village of Staromayorske in Donetsk. He also claimed they had captured positions near the town of Andriivka, southwest of Bakhmut, in the face of stiff Russian resistance.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently said that Ukraine has retaken half the territory captured by Russia since the latter’s invasion early last year.
Conflicting Narratives
However, Russian officials tell a different story.They say the counteroffensive has failed to make any significant breakthroughs since it began almost eight weeks ago.
They further say that Ukraine is sustaining massive losses, in both men and equipment and that its territorial gains are being grossly exaggerated.
On July 3, one month into the counteroffensive, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said Ukrainian forces had failed to penetrate Russian lines “in any sector.”
A week later, he said 26,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed—and thousands of pieces of military equipment destroyed—since the start of the counteroffensive.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, destroyed equipment includes aircraft, air-defense systems, artillery pieces, and Western-made tanks and armored vehicles.
At a July 23 meeting in St. Petersburg between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, the latter asserted: “There is no counteroffensive.”
Mr. Putin responded: “There is one, but it failed.”
The Russian leader’s assertion contrasts sharply with recent statements by U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“It’s far from a failure,“ Mr. Milley responded, when asked point-blank if the counteroffensive had failed. ”It’s way too early to make that kind of call.
The Specter of Defeat
For months, Ukrainian officials had promised to wage a robust counterattack aimed at retaking territory captured earlier by Russia.Kyiv had hoped to push its forces to the Sea of Azov, thereby cutting off Russia’s land bridge to Crimea.
But that has so far failed to materialize, and even some Western officials admit that the counteroffensive has progressed much slower than expected.
Speaking to reporters earlier this month, Rob Bauer, chairman of NATO’s military committee, warned against the idea that the counteroffensive would be “an easy walkover.”
Even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy—known for his rosy battlefield assessments—has conceded that the counteroffensive was going “slower than desired.”
Meanwhile, reports have emerged that suggest Ukrainian forces on the front line face increasingly difficult circumstances.
On July 22, the pro-Ukraine Kyiv Post reported that troops suffered from “poor morale” due to “constant and accumulating losses, sometimes poor support, and limited ... ground gains against a tough and deeply dug-in Russian opponent.”
Two days later, Yevgeny Balitsky, the Moscow-appointed governor of Zaporizhzhia, claimed Ukrainian troops had begun surrendering en masse.
“Not just one or two at a time,” he was cited by the Russian media. “Entire units are surrendering.”
The Epoch Times couldn’t confirm the claims. But even the Western press has begun to face the prospect that Kyiv’s counteroffensive could end in failure.
On July 18, British newspaper The Telegraph ran an op-ed, titled “Ukraine and the West are facing a devastating defeat.”
The West must face “the grim prospect of territorial concessions [to Russia] as one potential political outcome of a failed counteroffensive,” according to the writer, who is affiliated with the London-based think tank Civitas.
