Ukraine Reports First Steps of Counteroffensive Are Under Way

Ukraine is being cagey about defining what that means as it encompasses everything from artillery and missile strikes to infantry advances, but the clear implication is that preliminary moves are being made. JL 

Madeleine Ross and Natasha Anderson report in themail.online:

The first steps of Ukraine's highly anticipated counteroffensive against Putin's forces are underway. The 'intensity is increasing' and certain operations were already happening, including blowing up supply lines and depots. As the counteroffensive gains momentum there will be more incursions into Russia itself by rebel groups, imitating a recent raid in the Belgorod region. "An objective consequence of high-intensity war demonstrates that Russia cannot carry out the military action in Ukraine, and protect its own borders.'

A Ukrainian presidential adviser claimed the first steps of Ukraine's highly anticipated counteroffensive against Putin's forces are underway.Mykhailo Podolyak said the process was 'complicated' and that it was not 'a matter of one day or a certain date or a certain hour'. The adviser added that the 'intensity is increasing' and that certain operations were already happening, including blowing up supply lines and depots. 

The military recruitment video was published on Twitter yesterday morning, hours before Russia unleashed waves of air strikes on Kyiv overnight in what officials said appeared to be the largest drone attack on the city since the start of the war.

Mr Podolyak predicted that as the counteroffensive gains momentum there will be more incursions into Russia itself by rebel groups, imitating a recent raid in the Belgorod region. 

Expectations were raised that the counteroffensive was imminent on Saturday when the commander of Ukraine's armed forces, General Valeriy Zaluzhny, said on Telegram that: 'The time has come to take back what's ours.'

The commander shared a cinematic video of troops preparing for battle with a stirring prayer recited by an officer calling for blessings in his soldiers' 'slaying' of Ukrainian enemies. 

Podolyak denied that recent incursions by protest groups - such as the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom of Russia Legion, which are said to include right-wing extremists in their membership - into Russia were Kyiv-ordered. 

Russian authorities ordered residents of nine villages in the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine to evacuate their homes after drone strikes as anti-Putin rebel groups began capturing territory on Russian soil.

But Ukrainian officials did not intervene as they 'deeply sympathise with whatever protest movements are in Russia', Podolyak said.

The adviser questioned how Ukraine could justify stopping Putin's own citizens from challenging the 'authoritarian regime [that] exists in Russia'. 

He added that there would likely be more similar attacks as Ukraine continued to work towards liberating its territory.  

'It's an objective consequence of high-intensity war that will demonstrate that Russia cannot carry out the military action in Ukraine, and protect its own borders.'

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A Ukrainian soldier sits in a trench at the frontline near Bakhmut in the Donetsk region on May 26

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A Ukrainian army, German self-propelled Panzerhaubitze 2000 artillery fires toward Russian positions at the frontline near Bakhmut

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In a cinematic video shared online by Ukrainian commanders, a narrator can be heard asking for blessings for his troops 

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Men chant to a backdrop of action-sequence-like explosions as they prepare for the counteroffensive

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Silhouetted tanks with soldiers are shown getting into position ahead of the renewed attacks on Russian forces 

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Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, told the BBC that the push could begin 'tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a week'

Podolyak concluded: 'Since Russia has already lost its conventional war, the consequences of this loss will gradually move into Russian territory, and the federal government will eventually lose control over its territory.'

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, told the BBC that the push could begin 'tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a week'. 

 Mr Danilov, who is at the heart of President Zelensky's de facto war cabinet, added: 'It would be weird if I were to name the dates of the start.'

On Friday, Ukrainian military intelligence claimed, without offering evidence, that Russia is plotting a 'large-scale provocation' at a nuclear power plant it occupies in the southeast of the country with the aim of disrupting a looming Ukrainian counteroffensive.

A statement released Friday by the intelligence directorate of Ukraine's Defense Ministry claimed that Russian forces would strike the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the biggest in Europe, and then report a radioactive leak in order to trigger an international probe that would pause the hostilities and give the Russian forces the respite they need to regroup ahead of the counteroffensive.

In order to make that happen, Russia 'disrupted the rotation of personnel of the permanent monitoring mission' of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency that was scheduled for Saturday, the statement said.