Ukraine Takes Its Counteroffensive All the Way to the Russian Border

This is very big news. Now folks are worried that Ukraine might win the war.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Ukraine says it has liberated one village after another in the northeast as it pushes a counteroffensive whose success has surprised many":

KHARKIV, Ukraine — Ukraine claimed Monday that it took several more villages, pushing Russian forces right back to the northeastern border, part of a lightning counteroffensive that forced Moscow to withdraw troops from some areas in recent days.

After months of little discernible movement on the battlefield, Kyiv’s sudden momentum has lifted Ukrainian morale and provoked outrage in Russia and even some rare public criticism of President Vladimir Putin’s war. As Ukrainian flags began to flutter over one city emerging from Russian occupation, a local leader alleged that the Kremlin’s troops had committed atrocities against civilians there similar to those in other places seized by Moscow’s forces.

“In some areas of the front, our defenders reached the state border with the Russian Federation,” said Oleh Sinegubov, the governor of the northeastern Kharkiv region. Over the weekend, the Russian Defense Ministry said troops would be pulled from two areas in that region to regroup in the eastern region of Donetsk.

There were reports of chaos as Russian troops pulled out in haste.

“The Russians were here in the morning. Then at noon, they suddenly started shouting wildly and began to run away, charging off in tanks and armored vehicles,” Dmytro Hrushchenko, a resident of recently liberated Zaliznychne, a small town near the eastern front, told Sky News of the quick withdrawal.

It was not yet clear if Ukraine’s latest blitz could signal a turning point in the war. Some analysts suggested it might be, while also cautioning that there would likely be months more of fighting. Momentum has switched back and forth before.

Still, the mood was jubilant across Ukraine.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces said Monday that its troops had liberated more than 20 settlements within the last day. In Kharkiv, authorities hailed some return to normality, noting that power and water had been restored to about 80% of the region’s population following Russian attacks on infrastructure that knocked out electricity in many places across Ukraine.

“You are heroes!!!” Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov wrote early in the morning on the Telegram messaging app, referring to those restoring utilities. “Thanks to everyone who did everything possible on this most difficult night for Kharkiv to normalize the life of the city as soon as possible.”

The buoyant mood was also captured by a defiant President Volodymyr Zelensky on social media late Sunday.

“Do you still think you can intimidate, break us, force us to make concessions?” Zelensky said. “Read my lips. Cold, hunger, darkness and thirst for us are not as scary and deadly as your ‘friendship’ and brotherhood.’”

At the end, he exclaimed: “We will be with gas, lights, water and food… and WITHOUT you!”

In Russia itself, there were some signs of disarray as Russian military bloggers and patriotic commentators chastised the Kremlin for failing to mobilize more forces and take stronger action against Ukraine. Russia has continuously stopped short of calling its invasion of Ukraine a war, instead using the description “special military operation.” Instead of a mass mobilization that could spur civil discontent and protest, it has relied on a limited contingent of volunteers.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the Moscow-backed leader of the Russian region of Chechnya, publicly criticized the Russian Defense Ministry for what he called “mistakes” that had made the Ukrainian blitz possible.

Even more notable, such criticism seeped onto state-controlled Russian TV.

“People who convinced President Putin that the operation will be fast and effective ... these people really set up all of us,” Boris Nadezhdin, a former parliament member, said on a talk show on NTV television. “We’re now at the point where we have to understand that it’s absolutely impossible to defeat Ukraine using these resources and colonial war methods.”

Yet amid Ukraine’s ebullience, the casualties kept mounting. Zelensky’s office said Monday that at least four civilians were killed and 11 others were wounded in a series of Russian attacks in nine regions of the country. The United Nations Human Rights Office said last week that 5,767 civilians have been killed so far.

In a reminder of the war’s toll, a council member in Izyum — one of the areas that Moscow said it has withdrawn troops from — accused Russian forces of killing civilians and committing other atrocities...