On the southern tip of the eastern front, Ukrainian forces continued a hit-and-miss counteroffensive that has brought them to within 20 miles of the city of Kherson, a provincial capital captured by Russia in the early days of the war.
A senior U.S. Defense Department official said this past week that the Ukrainians were not only taking back southern villages, but also showing an ability to hold retaken ground.
Ukraine’s military also claimed to have struck Russian military targets near Kherson on Friday. “Operating in pairs, our pilots struck ammunition depots, and a cluster of enemy troops and equipment” in Russian-held villages north of the city, the Southern Command said in a Facebook post.
Military analysts have attributed some of Ukraine’s incremental gains in the south to the steady flow of advanced Western weaponry to its military.
Recently, the first batch of U.S.-made multiple-rocket launchers, called High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, entered the battlefield. Armed with satellite-guided rockets, they have a range of more than 40 miles — greater than anything Ukraine had previously.
Still, only four of the launchers and their U.S.-trained crews have joined the fight, though four more are expected this month. Ukrainian officials say they need as many as 300 multiple-rocket launchers to combat Russia, which is firing several times as many rounds as Ukraine’s forces in the artillery-driven war of attrition.