Ukraine’s counteroffensive against the mighty Russian military is proceeding “like a snowball rolling down a hill,” Ukraine’s military chief Oleksii Reznikov told the Financial Times this weekend, after several days of surging into territory recently occupied by Russian invaders. Soon afterward, still more gains lent his remarks additional weight and credibility, at least for the time being.
Ukraine has advanced rapidly around Kharkiv, allegedly regaining more than 3,000 square kilometers (1,158 square miles) as they’ve pushed some of Moscow’s invading troops all the way back to “the state border with the Russian Federation,” according to Oleh Syniehubov, a regional official in Kharkiv. Reznikov called the ongoing counteroffensive a “Ukrainian blitzkrieg,” according to FT. Since Wednesday, when the blitz began, “Ukraine has recaptured territory at least twice the size of Greater London,” the British military said in its latest update from Russia’s Ukraine invasion on Monday.
For some perspective, consider this: Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky claimed Ukraine had retaken 1,000 sq km of territory on Thursday evening, and then 2,000 sq km by Saturday. The latest 3,000-km estimate comes from Zelenskyy’s top military officer, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, who shared it Sunday on Telegram.
Most analysts view Ukraine’s “blitz” as its biggest and most tangible success to date, at least since pushing Russian forces out of the suburbs around the capital city of Kyiv back in March, just days after Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded with their 40-mile convoy of trucks and tanks. But despite all this, it’s worth noting that “Russians still hold around a fifth of the country, and few imagine a swift end to the war,” as the BBC reminds us.
