RIGHT SPEAK: Here’s What To Know About UKRaine’s Mounting Counteroffensive; UKR Strikes RUssian Logistics; RU Forces Fail to Make Advances in Donetsk Oblast; UKR Claims Recapture of Seven Villages in Early Stages of Counteroffensiv, LIVE UPDATES and MORE


UKR Ministry of Defense/FLICKR

Here’s What To Know About Ukraine’s Mounting Counteroffensive:

Taking land won’t be the object of the counterattack per se, but rather destroying the Russian army in Ukraine.

After months of preliminaries, the long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces occupying Ukraine kicked off on June 8. Understanding what’s happening as both sides work to shape the information battlespace can be a challenge.

During my 24-year career as a U.S. Army intelligence officer, with most of that time serving in armored units, I constantly trained on Soviet doctrine. Here is a short guide to understanding the complex military operation unfolding in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s objective in its counteroffensive is to reclaim as much of its territory from Russia as possible — not only land seized in Russia’s 2022 invasion, but also lands taken in 2014 — the Donbas region to the east and even Crimea. But taking land won’t be the object of the counterattack per se, but rather destroying the Russian army in Ukraine.

Destroying the army and taking the land naturally follows. Focus on terrain, as the Russians did in trying to take Bakhmut, and you risk an intact enemy mounting his own counterattack.

Russia has had months to prepare a layered defense consisting of anti-tank ditches, minefields, and trenches. One way to think of these preparations is as a labor-saving investment in capital. Fewer soldiers need to cover a frontage and those soldiers will have a higher survival rate in the face of artillery bombardments, artillery being responsible for about 80 percent of the casualties on the modern battlefield.

But defenses don’t do anything unless they’re covered with observation and fires; both direct, rifle, machinegun, and anti-armor; and indirect, artillery, rocket, and air strikes. And, most importantly, in this case, defenses are static. Thus, if the Ukrainians breach Russia’s layered defense after days or weeks of hard fighting, they may be able to break out into Russia’s rear areas. At that point, things will happen very fast.

Defense is easier than offense, and this Ukrainian counteroffensive will likely run up against a far better-prepared Russian defense than their offensives of last fall. That said, the Ukrainians have had the benefit of two big advantages since then. First, the Ukrainians have received significant infusions of Western equipment, equipment that was specifically designed to meet, and defeat, Soviet-era equipment on the battlefield. Second, Ukraine has mobilized a much larger share of its population than has Russia, with a significant portion of Ukraine’s forces having now been trained in the Western way of war, not only on individual tanks, armored vehicles, and artillery and rocket systems but also as staff. The significance of this training is hard to understate. --->READ MORE HERE

Manu Brabo for The Wall Street Journal

WSJ: Ukraine Strikes Russian Logistics, Recaptures Village:

Kyiv hits deep in Russian-occupied territory as its forces search for opportunities to break through enemy lines

Ukrainian forces conducted several strikes deep in the Russian-occupied south, as officials in Kyiv said they had recaptured another village in the eastern Donetsk region.

The dual efforts showcase the Ukrainian strategy of probing for weaknesses in Russian defensive lines with Western armored vehicles while seeking to choke supplies to the Russian troops manning them.

Ukraine’s military and Russian-installed officials reported strikes in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region around strategic cities. Further east, a Ukrainian official confirmed the recapture of the village of Storozheve, extending a Ukrainian advance south along a small river in the Donetsk region.

The early stages of Ukraine’s counteroffensive have yielded mixed results for Kyiv’s forces, which have committed a small proportion of their Western armored vehicles and Western-trained units to assaults.

Ukrainian forces are having the most success in the Donetsk region, where they say they have retaken a few small villages south of the town of Velyka Novosilka, as well as the nearby village of Novodarivka, in the Zaporizhzhia region.

“The national flag is flying over Storozheve again,” Hanna Malyar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, wrote Monday on Telegram, posting a photo of Ukraine’s 68th Brigade in the retaken village.

The advance is still a few miles short of the first major Russian entrenchments, which Moscow has spent several months preparing.

Ukrainian forces have failed to gain much ground in the Zaporizhzhia region, with their assaults largely repelled by the Russians and several Western tanks lost.

Military analysts say Ukraine’s armored thrusts toward Tokmak, a transport hub, suffered from a lack of air defenses, which allowed Russia to target them with helicopters and use aerial drones. --->READ MORE HERE