The Ukrainian counteroffensive: a 180-degree turn in the war

The reporter and journalist María Senovilla, a contributor to Atalayar, analysed from the field the more than 80 Russian towns and a thousand square kilometres of territory that the Ukrainian army of President Volodymyr Zelensky has managed to occupy without any forceful response from Vladimir Putin.  

In addition, it analyses the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, a controversy that could have an impact on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  

Maria, the Ukrainian army is increasing, not just maintaining, but increasing its positions in the Russian region of Kursk, and there is no forceful response from Moscow. What is going on? 

That's right, it has not stopped advancing in these 11 days of incursion. There are already 82 Russian localities that have come under Ukrainian control and for the moment there has been no forceful force from the Kremlin, no head-on collision, no force to stop the Ukrainian advance in any way. 

It is true that in the last few days, according to the troops who are carrying out this counter-offensive, Russian shelling has intensified against their own territory to halt the Ukrainian advance, but the truth is that they have not succeeded, and they have already managed to occupy 1,150 square kilometres. 

The Ukrainians have said that they will open safe humanitarian corridors so that people left in Ukrainian-held territory can leave if they wish, and they will also allow international NGOs to aid in all these places.  

This is important because the Kremlin troops have not at any time in the territories, they have occupied in Ukraine allowed UN working groups, the International Red Cross, any of these international organisations that can somehow guarantee the humanitarian rights of Ukrainian citizens who have been left under Russian occupation. 

This is important, because Zelensky has made it public that in the case of Kursk, of the territory he is occupying in Russia, this is not going to be the case. They are not going to proceed in the same way, and they are going to abide by international law to respect all the international humanitarian rights of the Russian citizens who have been left under Ukrainian occupation.  

It is surprising that Putin has failed to stop the 11-day offensive. It was already said last week that Wagner's mercenaries, those based in Belarus, were already on their way, but there have been no reports of their arrival and no reports of such clashes, such hand-to-hand combat, with sufficiently large numbers of troops. 

And this, in Ukraine, has unleashed a wave of optimism the likes of which I have not seen for a long time. There is a completely different mood. Many people have regained hope, and it is reminiscent at times of the reactions at the time of the Kharkov counteroffensive in 2022, the first time Ukrainians believed they could win this war. 

The same is happening now. On the streets, Kramatorsk is a militarised city, there are more people in uniform than civilians, but no matter if you ask people in uniform, people shopping in the supermarket or having a coffee, they answer with a smile, with the caution to say that we have to see what happens, but the mood of the Ukrainian population has now turned 180 degrees.  

Because, of course, does the Ukrainian army have the capacity to sustain this operation, beyond the moral impact of the people and the media impact?  

Some spokesmen have already said that Ukraine has no interest in maintaining or permanently annexing this part of Russian territory. They would want it to negotiate at a given moment, but it is true that they are working right now on a buffer zone, on securing a strip of this conquered Russian territory, to build fortified defences along it, to armour a piece of territory so that when those Russian troops arrive, they can protect it.  

We assume that they are hurrying because they also have to take advantage of the surprise factor. Russia did not expect this invasion, I don't think any of us did, so the response has been slow, and I imagine that the Ukrainian troops are working against the clock to shield a piece of the territory they have managed to conquer.  

In any case, a battalion does not mobilise in a flash, it takes days of preparation and logistics, and although Russia did not expect this and was not prepared, I can assure you that it is preparing now. It is a constant that we have seen throughout these two and a half years of war, when Ukraine takes the initiative with some action that was not expected, the Russians learn quickly. So, it will be a matter of days before we see that response. 

But the Russians continue with attacks and shelling in other places, in other combat zones, it was thought that this operation was going to take some of the pressure off Donbass, but for the moment the Russians are still doing their thing.  

Last week they carried out a terrible attack on a hypermarket and a shopping centre in Konstantinovka. There were 14 dead and more than 40 wounded, a completely civilian target, and in the days that followed we had shelling in Kramatorsk for the next two days.  

Here they also bombed an electrical substation, part of an industrial estate where there were factories with people working, and the old town of Kramatorsk, where dozens of houses were affected, with no windows, no structural damage, no water, no electricity. I don't know if this was a response to the Kursk counteroffensive, because we can no longer talk about responses, because these are actions that Russia has been doing for two and a half years, bombing civilian targets, hospitals, supermarkets, residential buildings. So, it was a very complicated days. The weekend, above all, was very complicated here in this area, and on the axis between the cities of Pokrovsk, Torez, Niu-York and Konstantinovka, the pressure has not only not diminished, but it has also increased.  

Urban fighting continues in the town of Torez, which last week was going on timidly. Now a significantly larger number of Russian troops have entered the town, and they say the situation is deteriorating by the day. We have even had days in which we have counted 3,000 shell impacts between artillery, glide bombs and missiles, so you can see the intensity of the war we are experiencing in this part of the Donbass, which, against all odds, this incursion by Kursk has not managed to stop.  

Maria, one last point, in this case a little more controversial. The sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline has been linked to President Zelensky, the president of Ukraine.  

This is what the American Wall Street Journal insinuated, and the reactions have not been long in coming.  

The far-right parties in the Netherlands are at the forefront of the controversy, have demanded explanations from the government in Kiev, and have even threatened to suspend military aid to Ukraine if this information is confirmed. Let us remember that Nord Stream was a gas pipeline that transported Russian gas to Germany through the Baltic Sea, and that it was sabotaged on 26 September 2022, almost two years ago, without anyone taking responsibility for the explosions that took it out of service at the time. Now Germany has issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian national living in Poland, a diving instructor, allegedly linked to the Nord Stream sabotage.  

Attempts are being made to clarify whether President Zelensky was aware of all this. This is precisely what the US newspaper has insinuated, that Zelensky initially approved the plan, and then tried to cancel it without success, but yesterday Zelensky denied everything. He said that Ukraine had nothing to do with it and that he had certainly not given any sabotage orders against the pipeline that transported Russian gas to Germany.  

It is also worth bearing in mind the links that these far-right parties in the Netherlands have with the Kremlin. These political parties are strongly pro-Russian. Moreover, they do not hide, they make it clear, that they have been trying for a long time now to stop the military and financial aid to Ukraine. 

So now they will undoubtedly try to amplify this controversy, and we must also see how the interrogations and the proceedings Germany is conducting with this Ukrainian citizen, a diving instructor, who could be involved in the sabotage of Nord Stream, are progressing. We do not know whether he is acting on Zelensky's orders, on his own account, or whether the accusation is baseless.