I thought this was a good discussion of the situation near Tokmak.
Ukraine Chalks Up Small Advance in Southern Push - The capture of Robotyne is a small victory for a Western-trained unit that had suffered disastrous losses early in the counteroffensive
Updated Aug. 22, 2023 3:53 pm ET
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine—Ukrainian forces said they had seized the village of Robotyne, taking another small step in Kyiv’s efforts to cut through Russian defenses in southern Ukraine.
Robotyne’s capture by Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Brigade on Tuesday gives Kyiv something to celebrate, after two months of hard fighting, substantial casualties and minimal gains since the long-awaited counteroffensive began.
About 9 miles south of Orikhiv, where Ukrainian forces began their march south, Robotyne is within about 14 miles of Tokmak, a key crossroads on the way south toward Melitopol, which is the biggest Russian-occupied city in the Zaporizhzhia region. Kyiv is hoping its troops can reach the Sea of Azov during the counteroffensive and bisect Russian forces.
Moscow holds about a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, including the southern Crimean Peninsula, which it seized in 2014 and which has served as an important base for launching its military operations in the rest of Ukraine. Though fighting continues in the east of the country—and Russians have launched their own offensive in the Kharkiv region to take territory that Ukraine reclaimed last fall—both sides are concentrating the bulk of their troops in the south, which analysts see as the strategic key.
If Ukrainian forces can punch through to the Sea of Azov, they’ll sever the land bridge connecting Russia to Crimea, making it difficult for Moscow to supply its forces in the Kherson region, to the west of Robotyne. Kyiv has also been targeting Russian supply lines; in recent weeks, it hit the Kerch Bridge, which connects Crimea to Russia, as well as a bridge that connects Crimea to mainland Ukraine.
Still, the offensive has been a difficult slog for Kyiv.
Moscow has built a series of trenches, tank traps and other barriers between Robotyne and Tokmak, which could make the next phase of the fighting even more difficult for Ukraine. Without sufficient air defenses that would allow Ukraine’s air force to provide soldiers with cover as they advance, Ukrainian units have suffered attacks from Russian helicopters. Ukraine has seized just a handful of villages along the southern front in the two months since the offensive began.
“These Ukrainian troops are being sent to do something we’d never do—launching a counteroffensive without total air superiority,” said Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe. Days ago, after months of pleas from Ukraine for fighter jets, the U.S. agreed to let allies transfer F-16s to Kyiv, and the Netherlands and Denmark collectively pledged to send more than 60 of them. However those jets aren’t expected to arrive for months.
The counteroffensive began disastrously for the 47th Brigade—one of Ukraine’s newly formed units, which was provided with Western tanks and trained in Europe this spring. At the start of June, as the brigade pushed south from Orikhiv, a number of its Western-armored vehicles were trapped in minefields; some were lost.
In the months since, Kyiv has adjusted its tactics, with infantry now leading the charge through minefields on foot and tanks supporting from behind, according to soldiers in several brigades fighting in the area. The arrival of American cluster munitions has also boosted the offensive, soldiers said.
“At the start, we thought we could take our fist and hit them with all our strength, and we almost broke our hand,” one soldier from the 47th Brigade said recently. He added that the brigade has gained experience, especially with demining, and is proceeding more methodically—but taking heavy casualties.
“It’s a very big price,” he said. “Lots of injuries. Lots of new people. Not a lot of time to prepare.”
Ukraine’s push to retake territory has been slow, as its forces face a deadly problem: land mines. WSJ explains how Russia created one of the largest minefields in the world in the occupied regions, and their impact on Kyiv’s counteroffensive. Photo: Ignacio Marin/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Videos posted by the 47th Brigade show civilians happily greeting the soldiers.
They are now evacuating the civilians and evaluating them for injuries, the brigade said. Robotyne had several hundred residents before the war began.
“Psychologically, it was very difficult,” said one 52-year-old woman from Robotyne on a video the brigade published on Tuesday. “We hoped and waited for ours to come…We waited for a long time, and today it happened.”
The British Defense Ministry said a drone had likely destroyed a bomber jet at a Russian air base hundreds of miles from the Ukrainian border.
The Tu-22M3 BACKFIRE bomber that was likely hit has been used to fire inaccurate antiship missiles against Ukraine, the ministry wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“This is at least the third successful attack on LRA airfields, again raising questions about Russia’s ability to protect strategic locations deep inside the country,” the ministry wrote, referring to Russia’s Long Range Aviation (LRA).
Meanwhile, Russia is attacking Ukrainian forces in northeastern Ukraine, attempting to regain area it lost to Kyiv last autumn, when Ukrainian forces took a swath of land around Kharkiv. Russia is on the offensive there, trying to advance on the city of Kupyansk, in a reflection of Moscow’s continued hopes of grabbing more Ukrainian territory, even as its own invasion stalls.