While the results of the Ukrainian counteroffensive are waiting in the south and southeast of the country, Russia is playing its cards in the northeast. According to Moscow, the thrust of its troops have managed to advance three kilometers in Kharkiv this weekend. The fruit of this Russian offensive, which Kyiv denies, is small, but significant because it is perhaps their only joy on the battlefield since they captured the city of Bakhmut in May.
The spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, stated Monday that his troops achieved this advance in three days in a sector of the Kharkiv front with a width of 11 kilometers. The spokesman for the Russian Western group, Sergei Zibinsky, assured that in the vicinity of the town of Olshona, Russian troops managed to occupy seven strong points of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In addition, they defeated a company of Ukrainian infantry.
In this way, while the robust defenses that the Russians have built hinder the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south and southeast, Moscow's troops increase the intensity of their assaults in the northeast. “They have a plan. The occupiers want to regain the territories they lost in the south of the Kharkiv region," Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said on television.
Last September, Moscow suffered a serious setback when the Ukrainians forced their forces to withdraw from the territories they had occupied in Kharkiv since the first days of their intervention.
The Ukrainian authorities deny that there have been significant Russian advances in the area. Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, wrote on Telegram that "the Russians shelled the village of Kucherivka, in the Kupiansk district, hitting a house", as a result of which "two deaths and three are reported." wounded".
The Ukrainians also launched offensives in that area, but according to Konashenkov the Russian troops repelled 12 counterattacks by three Ukrainian motorized brigades.
The future of the conflict may depend on how the Ukrainian counteroffensive develops and on the Russian ability to regain the initiative on the battlefield, as well as the various initiatives to find peace.
The last one, the meeting last weekend in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), was attended by representatives of more than 40 countries, including Russia's partners such as the Brics countries, among which China stands out. But there were no delegates from Moscow, showing that Russia and Ukraine are not yet ready to negotiate.
Kyiv demands that the Russian troops withdraw. Moscow wants, among other things, that the “new territorial realities” be recognized, that is, that it be accepted that Russia will keep the four Ukrainian regions that it said it had annexed in September 2022 (Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donestsk and Luhansk); that the West stop supplying arms to Kyiv and that Ukraine's neutral status be confirmed.
The spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zajárova, pointed out yesterday Monday that none of the ten points of the formula of the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, "that they try to promote in these meetings", "is aimed at finding a negotiated and diplomatic solution to the crisis” and that this plan itself is a “meaningless ultimatum for Russia”.
