Ukraine scores sudden breakthrough that should energize Western support

An elderly Ukrainian village woman comes to her garden gate and freezes as she watches a soldier approach. Then she puts her hand to her mouth, and begins to sob. As the soldier embraces her, she hugs him back, intensely.

He is Ukrainian, part of a force that has liberated numerous villages and the key city of Izium from Russian occupation over the weekend. The meeting between the soldier and the villager was captured in a video that went viral during the lightning counteroffensive in northeast Ukraine that drove Russian forces back from much of the Kharkiv region. The Ukrainian military plans were kept so secret, and the advance was so speedy, that it stunned most foreign observers (myself included) and most Ukrainians I've spoken to since then.

This is the biggest military victory for Ukraine since its forces drove the Russians back from Kyiv in March, when it blocked Vladimir Putin's plans to kill or capture President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. "The strategic initiative is ours for the first time since the war started," former parliament member Yehor Soboliev, who now serves in the army, told me via WhatsApp on Sunday morning.

The counteroffensive has propelled the war into a new phase in which Ukraine is regaining territory, instead of being stuck in a drawn-out war of attrition. This blitz happened even though Ukraine is still short of all the vital long-range weapons it needs to counter the rockets and missiles that destroy its cities and soldiers.

"The stalemate phase of the war is over," said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of the United States Army Europe, speaking by phone from Germany. "We are in a different phase of the conflict now."

So how did this turnaround happen, and what does it mean for the future of the war?

Two main factors appear to be key: First, Russian occupation forces collapsed across the front lines in the northeast. Hodges told me he was sure that Russian foot soldiers "would crack because they are exhausted, and are not being resupplied, and their officers are being killed. They don't have cohesion in the ranks or the will to fight."

Russian logistics supplies have been disrupted by the fairly recent delivery of advanced mobile rocket launchers from the United States, Britain, and Germany. (While very grateful for the weapons, many Ukrainians believe if they had had them sooner, the war might be almost over by now.)

So the Russian lines broke, while their troops fled or were captured, leaving behind enormous amounts of equipment, fuel, and ammunition. (This matches the stories I heard on my recent trip to Ukraine, where Ukrainian troops poured scorn on Russia's unprofessional soldiers, who, they told me, often leave their dead behind.)

Even so, the scope of the rout was a shocker. "I am surprised at how the Russia army failed and is running away," Odesa's war-savvy member of parliament, Olexsiy Goncharenko, told me via WhatsApp on Sunday.

But equally key was the strategy and professionalism of Ukrainian military planners (helped greatly by shared U.S. intelligence information). They duped Russian generals into sending tens of thousands of their best forces south by heavily publicizing a planned counteroffensive to retake the strategic port of Kherson. That left northern Russian defense lines undermanned.

Meantime, the Ukrainians maintained operational silence about their plans for the north, an astonishing feat while moving masses of equipment without detection. Their blitz appeared to take Russian forces completely by surprise.

Ukrainians have no illusions that the war is over. Putin still seems ready to absorb limitless military casualties and still has huge supplies of artillery and ammunition. Putin's forces still occupy roughly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, along with most of its coastline. Russia continues to pound Ukrainian cities and troops with rockets and missiles that have caused tens of thousands of casualties. Putin will look for more ways to inflict pain.

"But such successes [as this past weekend] show us the way," said Soboliev, whose WhatsApp line kept dying because he was speaking from a forest while serving with his unit.

Ukrainian forces, he says, have demonstrated that they can carry out fast, well-planned operations during which innovative junior officers think on their feet. The Russian military still suffers from a top-down system where lower cadres are afraid to act without orders. This cumbersome structure doomed Russian efforts to take Kyiv — and helped Ukrainians achieve their weekend triumph.

In this new phase of the war, Hodges says it is critical for the West to stick together in aiding Kyiv. Western leaders, he adds, should speed up delivery of the long-range precision systems that Ukraine needs to target Russian logistics and destroy their artillery. "This is what enables Ukraine to do damage behind the lines," he said. "We could double what we have sent, if you look at how successful [these weapons] have been already."

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If the Ukrainians get the weapons they need from America and Europe, and get them fast, Hodges believes "the Russians could be pushed back to the Feb. 23 lines by the end of the year."

(Moscow occupied Crimea and part of the Donbas region after a 2014 invasion, before Putin's second invasion started on Feb. 24.)

But, Hodges added, if Ukraine retakes more of its land in the south, "Crimea is feasible by early next year, although it could go faster. In warfare there is a psychological aspect. There is panic as a cascading effect sets in."

This may be vastly over-optimistic, but the drama of the past weekend indicates it is not beyond imagination. The Biden team and its European allies should do their best to help make Hodges' prediction come true.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Trudy Rubin
Philadelphia Inquirer
(TNS)

Previously:

• 09/09/22: Queen Elizabeth's death deprives Britain and the world of a rock of stability • 09/08/22: After Gorbachev's death, Putin wants the world to know he is the 'anti-Gorbi'

• 08/26/22: 6 months after Russia's war vs. Ukraine began, the West still won't give Kiev the weapons to win

• 08/15/22: Ukraine's civilian volunteers work to give aid and rebuild, even as Russia continues to bomb them

• 08/08/22: A trip near the front lines finds Ukrainian troops ready for a battle that could decide the war

• 06/13/22: The critical battles for Ukraine and for America are being fought right here, right now

• 05/02/22: Save Odesa to save the world from hunger and high food prices

• 05/02/22: Bloodless Ukrainian War, not utopian fantasy says one-time largest foreign investor in Russia

• 04/11/22: The only way to end Putin's war crimes

• 03/28/22: Don't let Putin's nuclear and chemical threats stop us from giving Ukraine what it needs

• 03/24/22: An elegy for Mariupol, where I walked six weeks ago. Now razed by Russian bombs

• 03/18/22: Zelenskyy's brilliant speech should impel Biden and Congress to protect Ukrainian skies

• 03/11/22: Mariupol's bombed maternity hospital exemplifies why NATO should protect Ukraine's skies

• 03/10/22: No 'no-fly zone'? Then NATO must find another way to protect Ukraine's skies

• 03/07/22: The third World War has already started in Ukraine. Europe and the US should wake up

• 03/04/22:Putin must be stopped from turning Kiev into Aleppo

• 03/02/22:Why is Belarus helping Russia invade Ukraine? An explainer on the latest in the conflict

• 02/25/22: What the UN should finally do about Russia

• 02/24/22: Why Putin's Ukraine aggression will change the world --- an explainer on how we got here

• 02/10/22: Ukrainian civilians train for war with cardboard guns: 'We are scared but we are ready

• 01/13/22:Putin wants to reestablish the Russian empire. Can NATO stop him without war?

• 12/10/21: Can Biden and NATO prevent Putin from invading Ukraine? Summit puts it to the test

• 12/02/21: Boris Johnson stirs up new Irish Troubles for his own personal political gains

• 11/22/21: Xi Jinping thinks America is on the rocks. Is he correct?

• 08/18/21: President Biden, get our Afghan allies on evacuation planes

• 08/18/21:The horror of Afghan women abandoned by Biden's troop pullout

• 08/09/21:China is pushing a big COVID-19 lie that makes a new pandemic harder to prevent

• 05/27/21: Punish Belarus leader for Ryanair hijacking before air piracy becomes dictators' new tool

• 04/14/21: Can Beethoven temper the political tensions between US and China?

• 06/01/20: US must stand with Hong Kong against Beijing's efforts to crush its freedoms

• 05/20/20: COVID-19 offers a chance to halt Iran's hostage diplomacy

• 05/21/14: Newscycle spurs visit to country my family fled

• 04/21/14: Blind to Putin's strategy?

• 12/24/13: Obama's Syrian indifference has led to more death and destruction. Meet some real heroes

• 12/13/13: Where liberals have come to love the military

• 12/09/13: The China strategy

• 11/05/13: Return to Iraq is worth a close look

• 10/01/13: Obama's call to Iran: Who was really on the line?

• 09/11/13: How Obama got Syria so wrong

• 07/24/13: It's time for Obama to tell Putin 'nyet'

• 05/15/13: What Russia gave Kerry on Syria --- very little

Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer.