Ukraine has had a rough week. The Russian offensive in Kharkiv, the same region Ukrainian forces liberated during a counteroffensive in September 2022, is once again an active theater of the war. The Russians have managed to claim as much as 10 kilometers since the middle of last week and are currently battling for Vovchansk, a town straddling the Ukrainian-Russian border. The situation got so serious that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky canceled his foreign travel plans.
The Russians have reportedly taken more land over the last week than Ukraine did during its six- monthlong counteroffensive last year. Indeed the Ukrainian town of Robotyne, one of the few areas the Ukrainian army captured last year, is now apparently back in Russia’s hands.
Ukraine’s top commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, has acknowledged that the situation has “significantly deteriorated.” It’s not difficult to understand why; in addition to the Russian maneuvers in Kharkiv, Russian troops are blasting away in Donetsk and Zaporizhizhia. While Russian President Vladimir Putin has insisted that the Kharkiv offensive is designed to establish a buffer zone to safeguard the Russian city of Belgorod from Ukrainian rocket attacks, spreading Ukrainian troops thin by diverting them from the Donbas is as much of an objective — if not more so.
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