Ukrainian forces pierced the first line of Russian fortifications in the nation’s southeast and are fighting to widen the breach, the nation’s defense chief said, in a bid for a potential breakthrough.
Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said that Ukrainian soldiers, on foot and mostly at night, had made slow progress in clearing heavily mined areas to create approach corridors for a larger force that has now fought through the first main line of Russian trenches, bunkers and tanks traps.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive launched in June has been bogged down by Russian forces dug in along a vast frontline stretching from the Donbas region in Ukraine’s east through the south to the mouth of the Dnipro river. The slow-going has worried Ukraine’s allies, who say a long fight risks giving Russian President Vladimir Putin the upper hand in a war of attrition.
Penetrating Russia’s first line of defense could potentially give Ukrainian forces an advantage, since further barriers may be less heavily protected, according to analysts from the Institute for the Study of War. Ukraine’s strategy of attacking across the broad front instead of concentrating its forces has been aimed at probing for weaknesses and forcing Russia to spend its reserves to produce gaps in their defenses.
Reznikov said Russian claims of advances in eastern Ukraine, particularly in the direction of the Ukrainian-led city of Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region, were a diversion tactic.
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