Ukraine: Silence along southern front fuels speculation over counteroffensive

Zaporizhia, Ukraine (CNN) Miles of empty fields you might expect to build armor on. A tank track that appears out of nowhere in the mud and leads there as well. A long-distance artillery battle in which locals repeat climaxes and declines.

Silence is beginning to speak. Ukraine has gone to great lengths to conceal the launch of a strategically important counteroffensive. Like how she pushed quickly and smartly at Izyum and Kharkiv at the end of last summer, success can only be known when it is finally achieved.

Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hannah Mariar said last week that no counterattack would be announced.

Russia is also reluctant to talk about Ukraine’s momentum. Very little has come out of that side either. Just Sunday, the US-based War Research Institute reported comments by a Russian military blogger suggesting that Ukrainian forces had crossed the Dnipro River near Kherson.

It was unclear how persistent and unprecedented the apparently small Ukrainian landings were, or how they fit into Ukraine’s broader plans. The Ukrainian Southern Command said little, but opaquely asked for “patience”. Its spokesperson, Natalia Humeniuk, said, “The situation of the military operation calls for information to be silenced until it is safe enough for our forces.

Over the past 10 days, Ukraine has been remarkably silent over the entire Zaporizhia region, where its counterattack is highly expected. Only there can militarily separate the occupied Crimea from the occupied territories in eastern Ukraine and mainland Russia.

Given the tight operational security put in place by Kiev, there were small comments from a legion of Russian military bloggers who are often the first sources of information on Ukrainian operations in past attacks. Kamianske, Polohy — These are all places where pro-Russian bloggers are suggesting Ukraine’s forward attempts. The evidence for these claims is frustratingly unclear, and the blogger’s track record is poor.

Russian Airlines is also trying to hit what it believes to be a Ukrainian target. In the town of Orihiv, about 40 miles southeast of Zaporizhia, bombings of sports schools, agricultural warehouses, and anything resembling military strongholds have been repeated. The small settlement of Vuhledar, further east of where Ukraine might launch a counterattack in the south, has been hit by several heavy airstrikes in the past 48 hours.

Intense and indiscriminate Russian firepower suggests high risks in the coming weeks. This is a fight that Moscow has known for six months.

The Russians had plenty of time to prepare. Russian President Vladimir Putin himself visited the war scene last week and met with Airborne Forces Commander Mikhail Teplinsky. They have dug trenches and defensive nets that are tortuous, likely to be stumbled or simply bypassed by Ukrainian forces.

It is the defining moment of the war for the Kremlin. Russian leaders, who have so far failed to advance the strategically unimportant city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, have publicly invested what little resources they have left.

It doesn’t reflect the small advantage Russia would have if it eventually gained control of the entire city. will be the winner.

But Ukrainian military gains in Zaporizhia could deal a stronger blow to Russia’s wider campaign. A land route from occupied Donbass to occupied Crimea, a land route between the peninsula annexed in 2014 and mainland Russia, the most useful in the long run is the territory Russia seized last year.

Losing this would greatly endanger the Russian army in Crimea, splitting its occupation in two. Failure of the Ukrainian military to thwart this most obvious ambition would expose the military’s strategic incompetence. It will also happen.

This is also a defining moment for Kiev. NATO has been unusually united and bold in supporting and arming Ukraine. This kind of clarity of purpose is an anomaly in Western democracies, where elections, economic variables, and other distractions are likely to dilute in the year ahead. Let’s just say, we can’t expect this level of support this time next year.

Prisoner recruits report that the Ukrainians face a weaker enemy than they did months ago, and the Russians even send wounded prisoners back to fight on the front lines.

Kiev’s army has better weapons and training from NATO than ever before. And they should be able to get valuable information from their Western allies in real time to unlock an advantage.

The current silence, with comments from the front lines on TikTok and Zaporizhia almost completely gone, may be the clearest indication yet that this important step is underway.