Ukraine goes on the counteroffensive as Russians fall back

By John Psaropoulos,  MARIUPOL Ukraine

Ukraine moved on the counteroffensive during week 11 of Russia’s war, taking back towns to the north and east of the second-largest city Kharkiv.

Ukrainian service members walk among debris of damaged buildings after a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine

According to some news reports, Russian forces retreated to regroup around defensive positions less than 10km (6 miles) from the Russian border, with Ukrainian units in hot pursuit.

“This Ukrainian operation is developing into a successful, broader counteroffensive – as opposed to the more localised counterattacks that Ukrainian forces have conducted throughout the war to secure key terrain and disrupt Russian offensive operations,” said the Institute for the Study of War.

“Ukrainian forces are notably retaking territory along a broad arc around Kharkiv rather than focusing on a narrow thrust, indicating an ability to launch larger-scale offensive operations than we have observed so far in the war.”

Reflecting increased confidence, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the first time outlined strict conditions on May 6 to enter peace talks with Russia, including a withdrawal of Russian forces to pre-February 24 borders, the return of nearly six million refugees, membership in the European Union, and accountability for those Russians who committed war crimes.

These remarks were a far cry from those Zelenskyy made on April 10. “No one wants to negotiate with a person or people who tortured this nation,” Zelenskyy said. But “we don’t want to lose opportunities, if we have them, for a diplomatic solution”.

Elsewhere, the war seemed to have reached an impasse; nowhere did Russia score a significant advance.

In Zaporizhzhia, in the country’s south, locals reported a Russian unit shot up 20 of its vehicles to avoid combat duty.

The unexpected difficulty of seizing Ukraine has raised questions about how long Russia will commit lives and money. Even Russian President Vladimir Putin’s only military ally, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, has said, “I feel like this operation has dragged on.”

United States Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a Congressional committee that Putin “is preparing for a prolonged conflict … moving along a more unpredictable and potentially escalatory trajectory”.

CIA Director William Burns said Putin “doesn’t believe he can afford to lose” in Ukraine. “I think he’s convinced right now that doubling down still will enable him to make progress.”

But there are limits to Putin’s stamina, said Emmanuel Karagiannis, a reader in international security at King’s College London.

“Since 1991, almost all inter-state wars have lasted weeks or months. Given the intensity of Western sanctions and the number of Russian casualties, Moscow cannot afford to continue the war for years,” Karagiannis told Al Jazeera.

The European Commission unveiled a sixth round of sanctions on May 4, including “a complete import ban on all Russian oil, seaborne and pipeline, crude and refined” by the end of the year, in President Ursula Von der Leyen’s words to European Parliament.

The US House of Representatives is preparing to approve a new $40bn package of military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.

“Western military support for Ukraine has been a game-changing factor, which Moscow apparently did not anticipate in its strategy. The Russian army was ill-prepared for such a long campaign and now suffers massive losses,” Karagiannis said.

The only good news for Russia during the week was that its forces finally began to storm the tunnels under the Azovstal metallurgical plant in Mariupol, where at least 1,000 Ukrainian fighters refuse to surrender. Russia has bombed the plant from the air and ground artillery, but had not risked the potentially high casualties of close-quarters combat.

On May 5, Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov regiment, told the Hromadske news service, “The Azovstal plant has been actively stormed for three days now … fighting is underway.” He sent a message via Telegram saying, “Give the opportunity to pick up the bodies of soldiers so that Ukrainians can say goodbye to their heroes.”

The head of the Mariupol patrol police, Mykhailo Vershinin, said the defenders’ perimeter was shrinking and the wounded were piling up.

On May 8, Palamar implied defeat may come soon. “We will continue to fight as long as we are alive to repel the Russian occupiers,” he told an online conference. “We don’t have much time; we are coming under intense shelling.”

The battle for Mariupol has become emblematic of Ukraine’s spirit. Removing the last pocket of resistance would be a symbolic victory for Putin, as well as enabling him to claim the entire littoral of the Sea of Azov.