The 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive occurred in the summer of 2023 when the Ukrainian Ground Forces launched major offensives in southern Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Oblast and eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast.
From late 2022 to the summer of 2023, the front lines of the Russian invasion of Ukraine had stagnated, and the Russians built a 500-mile-long defensive line in preparation for a war of attrition. By June 2023, the Bakhmut sector had grown quiet after the Russian Army and Wagner Group captured most of the city. This eerie quiet was concurrent with media speculation about a massive Ukrainian counteroffensive that was initially slated for the spring and later postponed until the summer to allow for more NATO weapons and equipment to arrive in Ukraine. During the months-long waiting period in early 2023, Ukrainian officials warned the West against setting high expectations for the counteroffensive, but the Western media continued to speculate that a Ukrainian victory in the war hinged on the success of the counteroffensive, which would pit Western-supplied Ukrainian forces against the Russian Army and influence the degree to which the West would decide to arm Ukraine.
On 3 June 2023, President Volodymyr Zelensky proclaimed that Ukraine was ready to launch its counteroffensive, and, a day later, Ukrainian officials called for operational silence to protect the lives of its soldiers, who were likely to suffer heavy losses during an all-out offensive. On 6 June, hoping to forestall an offensive into southern Ukraine, Russia destroyed the Kakhovka Dam on the Dnipro River, creating a major natural disaster decried by the Ukrainians as "ecocide".
After a few days of Ukrainian counterattacks in the Bakhmut sector, the counteroffensive officially began on 8 June 2023. In Zaporizhzhia Oblast, the Ukrainian military initially made good progress around Orikhiv, pushing the 58th Combined Arms Army back to their second line of defense before a Russian counterattack recaptured their front lines. The Russians' effective use of mining, their air superiority, and their use of electronic warfare systems resulted in Ukraine suffering heavy losses in this sector. On the Donetsk front, however, the Ukrainians made better progress, liberating Neskuchne and Blahodatne on 11 June. Ukrainian soldiers endured summer heat and horseflies, kamikaze drones, and withering artillery fire and went on to capture the village of Piatykhatky, a village near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. At the same time, the Russian major-general and 35th Combined Arms Army chief-of-staff Sergey Goryachev was killed in a Ukrainian Storm Shadow missile attack on the Russian front lines in Zaporizhzhia.
From 23 to 24 June 2023, the Russo-Ukrainian War took a drastic turn as Yevgeny Prigozhin's Wagner Group PMC mutinied against the Russian Army after the Russian military allegedly killed 2,000 Wagnerites in an airstrike on one of their rear camps. Wagner marched out of Ukraine, captured the Russian military headquarters and logistical hub at Rostov-on-Don, and advanced on Moscow to the north, securing Voronezh along the way. Ukraine took advantage of the internal chaos in Russia by launching simultaneous counteroffensives against several Russian fronts, including at Bakhmut and Yahidne. On the southern front, Ukrainian forces broke through the Novodanylivka-Robotyne line and the Mala Tokmachka-Novofedorivka line, leading to Russian reserve forces being mustered from the rear in an effort to stop these advances.
By 3 July 2023, the Ukrainian Armed Forces' eastern grouping reported that more than 180,000 Russian troops had been deployed aross the area of responsibility of the Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces, with the Russians deploying over 120,000 troops to the Lyman-Kupyansk front (including air assault and mechanized units, BARS combat army reserves, territorial forces, and Storm-Z assault companies) and 50,000 troops to the Bakhmut front. Bakhmut was once again the site of desperate fighting on behalf of the Russians, who manned the positions and strongholds once occupied by the Wagnerites, while the Russians threatened to launch offensives from Bakhmut in the direction of Chasiv Yar. That same day, CNN correspondent Maj. Mike Lyons said that the the term "counteroffensive" was a misnomer, as the campaign was marked by static, World War I-style trench warfare rather than by dynamic movements by both armies, and that, if 180,000 Russian troops were manning the eastern front, the Ukrainians would need 300,000 soldiers to break through and achieve their strategic goals. In response to Zelensky's statement (during a CNN interview) that a victory over Russia without recapturing Crimea would not be a victory, Lyons said that capturing Crimea would be unlikely, as the Russian Black Sea Fleet had been headquartered there for over a hundred years, meaning that Russia would refuse to give up the peninsula.
In a 5 July 2023 interview with CNN's Erin Burnett in Odesa, President Zelensky said that Ukraine's counteroffensive had been slowed down by entrenched Russian defenses, blaming the delay in the arrival of Western weapons on the failure of the Ukrainians to attack before the Russians could place more mines and prepare their defensive lines. He also said that, in some areas of the country, his military could not even think of starting attacks because it lacked the relevant weapons, such as American-made F-16 fighter jets.
Losses mounted on both the Ukrainian and Russian sides as the attritional warfare continued. Russian general Ivan Popov, commander of the 58th Combined Arms Army, was sacked by Valery Gerasimov on 11 July for requesting that his exhausted troops be rotated or given leave, with Gerasimov claiming that Popov's request was alarmist and an attempt to blackmail the Russian army. On that same day, Lieutenant-General Oleg Tsokov was killed in a Ukrainian missile strike, becoming Russia's highest-ranking casualty of the war by that time. Meanwhile, Putin persuaded Andrei Troshev to assume command of the Wagner Group as Prigozhin made several trips between Belarus and Russia for unspecified purposes.
By 15 July 2023, Ukrainian troops were forced to change tactics, as The New York Times reported that up to 20% of the military equipment delivered to the Ukrainian front line had been destroyed in the first two weeks of the counteroffensive. The Ukrainians focused more on exhausting Russian forces with artillery and long-range missiles than on attacking Russian-mined fields, slowing both equipment losses and the pace of the offensive. Despite suffering heavy losses, the Ukrainian army took just 5 of the 60 miles they hoped to cover to reach the sea in the south and split the Russian forces in two. At the same time, a column of Wagner mercenaries with at least 60 vehicles arrived in Belarus, bearing license plates from the DPR and LPR. The Wagner mercenaries entered Belarus from Russia near the city of Krychaw, moving towards a tent camp at the village of Tsyil. The Ukrainians responded by preparing forces in Kyiv Oblast for the possibility of a renewed Russian offensive against the Ukrainian capital, this time spearheaded by the battle-hardened, rapacious Wagnerites.
On 16 July 2023, Russia temporarily nationalized the French agribusiness Danone and the Carlsberg-owned brewer Baltika's shares in response to the companies reducing their operations in Russia; Russia also withdrew from a deal to allow Ukraine to continue exporting grain through the Black Sea. On 17 July 2023, Ukrainian naval drones once again struck the Kerch Bridge, inflicting minor damage and allegedly killing two civilians; the Russians planned to resume traffic in one lane only on 15 September, and two-way traffic on 1 November. At the same time, Ukraine claimed that Russia had concentrated 100,000 troops, over 900 tanks, and over 370 MLRS in the Lyman-Kupyansk direction; among the soldiers were Russian Airborne Forces, the best motorized infantry units, the combat army reserve, territorial troops, and Storm-Z companies. The Russians attempted to make a push in the area and achieve some success after Ukraine seized the momentum around Bakhmut. Ukrainian officials also recognized the dfficulty of the operations in the east, where the Russians launched an offensive against Kupyansk.
On 26 July 2023, after artillery preparation by a howitzer division and a jet battery of the formation, Ukrainian assault detachments swooped down to break through northeast of Robotyne (south of Orikhiv) with dozens of armored vehicles. The Ukrainians penetrated the Russian line in three areas, while Ukrainian forces continued to make advances along the Velyka Novosilka - Berdiansk axis in Zaporizhzhia. At the same time, Russia claimed that its 15th Motorized Rifle Brigade liberated Serhiivka and two other settlements near Kupyansk. By that evening, the 100-vehicle assault on Orekhiv enabled the Ukrainians to wedge themselves in three sections of the Russian first line of defense. Russian forces used their full arsenal, including aviation strikes, to push back against the Western-equipped and trained Ukrainian forces. At the same time, Ukrainian special forces pushed in Staromaiorske, capturing paratroopers from the Russian 247th Parachute Regiment. Russian forces around Bakhmut suffered heavy losses against the Ukrainians, and the Russians also suffered heavy losses in equipment and personnel while attempting to bypass Avdiivka.
Ukrainian troops in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, 31 July 2023
By 3 August 2023, Russian forces began a counterattack along the entire eastern front, with Kupyansk, Lyman, Bakhmut, Marinka, and Avdiivka being the most contested frontline areas, while heavy fighting continued to occur on the southern front. Experienced Russian units were sent to Bakhmut to stop the Ukrainian advance, as they saw Bakhmut as an important staging ground for an offensive. On 4 August, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu visited frontline troops in Ukraine and thanked troops for conducting "successful offensive operations" in the Lyman direction, just days after Valery Gerasimov visited troops in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. That same day, Ukraine used a sea drone loaded with 992 pounds of TNT to strike the Russian troop transport Olenegorsky Gornyak while 100 Russian servicemen were aboard, forcing the Russians to tow the ship back to Novorossiysk, where the ship began to list. At the same time, the Russian-occupied city of Berdiansk was rocked by explosions, as the Ukrainians targeted Russian ammunition depots. Later in the day, Ukraine claimed to have inflicted significant losses on Russian forces along the eastern front and prevented any advances at Kupyansk and Lyman, while the Ukrainian defense forces consolidated their positions near Bakhmut, and the Ukrainian 3rd Assault Brigade continued to engage in extremely difficult daily battles. Russian attacks on Avdiivka and Mariinka were also repelled.
Despite Ukraine's continued resistance to the Russians and limited gains, a CNN poll released on 4August 2023 showed that 55% of Americans opposed additional funding to support Ukraine, while 45% supported additional funding. The statistic showing that 51% of Americans believed that Ukraine had already done enough to help Ukraine sharply contrasted with a February 2022 poll showing that 62% of Americans felt that the USA should be doing more to support Ukraine. By 8 August 2023, Western officials increasingly described "sobering" assessments about Ukrainian forces' ability to retake significant territory in the face of heavy Russian mining and multi-layered defensive lines. Ukrainian forces incurred staggering losses during the trench warfare in the east and south, failing to breach the first Russian lines on many occasional Ukrainian commanders were forced to hold back some units to regroup and reduce casualties. Multiple officials said that the approach of fall, during which weather and fighting conditions would worsen, would give the Ukrainians a limited window to push forward, while Illinois Democratic congressman Mike Quigley said that Putin was waiting for peace talks, and could "sacrifice bodies and buy time" until talks could be held about territorial concessions.
On 16 August, Ukrainian forces from the 35th and 38th Separate Marine Brigades captured the village of Urozhaine in Donetsk Oblast after days of punishing battles, raising their flag near a memorial dedicated to Soviet veterans of World War II. Many Russian soldiers attempted to take shelter in Ukrainian homes, but Ukrainian cluster munitions slaughtered the dense huddles of cowering Russians. The capture of Urozhaine and Staromaiorske were used by Ukraine to assure the West that its counteroffensive continued to move forwards, albeit at a slower rate than anticipated. At the same time, heavy fighting continued south of Bakhmut, while Russia actively used its reserves at the ruined town of Marinka and at Krasnorohivka. Ukrainian forces continued to hold back the Russian offensive at Kupiansk, Lyman, and Bakhmut, while continuing to struggle against Russia's heavy defensive lines. On 28 August, the Ukrainians captured Robotyne, marking the breach of the Surovikin Line.
However, the counteroffensive continued to falter in early September. On 8 September 2023, South African business magnate Elon Musk disabled his Starlink satellites' communications network near the coast of Russian-occupied Crimea to foil a Ukrainian drone attack on approaching Russian warships; that same day, Russia claimed to have repelled numerous attacks along the front line in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia and inflicted hundreds of losses on Ukrainian forces. Russia also claimed to have shot down two Ukrainian drones attempting to attack a polling station in Skadovsk, Kherson Oblast as local elections were being held, while the FSB detained a man for plotting to blow up a railway in Crimea and collect information on the deployment of Russian military facilities and units.