The White House says it has seen reports that Ukraine has launched a counteroffensive against Russian forces in southern Ukraine, but would not comment further on specific Ukrainian military operations, said John Kirby, communications coordinator for the National Security Council. Kirby noted, however, that regardless of the size, scale and scope of the latest counteroffensive, the Ukrainians are “already having an impact on Russian military capabilities.” “Because the Russians were forced to pull resources from the east simply because of reports that the Ukrainians might attack more in the south,” Kirby said. “And so they had to deplete some units…in some areas in the east in the Donbas, to respond to what they clearly believed was a looming threat of a counter-attack.” Kirby also said that Russia “continues to have manpower problems” in Ukraine and is trying to expand the recruitment of fighters inside Russia as well as “tempting” some of its conscripts and contract soldiers to serve beyond the the frames.
That’s “because they’re facing manpower challenges — manpower challenges that don’t get any easier than the way they had to respond to reports of a possible counterattack by the Ukrainians,” Kirby said. Kirby also said that “the idea of ​​attack is not new to the Ukrainians.” “Now I recognize that what we’re talking about here is the potential for a large counterattack, which is different than going on the attack in a more localized way,” Kirby said. But he said Ukrainian forces had been “fighting the Russians inside” Ukraine for some time, including in the early months of the war around the capital Kyiv.
“So it’s not a new development for them to do this,” Kirby said. What Russia says: Moscow on Monday acknowledged Kiev’s counteroffensive in southern Ukraine, but said Ukrainian troops “suffered heavy losses” and “failed miserably” in their “attempted” attack. Ukrainian forces on Monday “tried an attack on the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions from three directions,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement, adding, “as a result of the active defense of the group of Russian troops, units of the Armed Forces.” of Ukraine suffered heavy losses.” The ministry said that during the fighting, 26 Ukrainian tanks, 23 infantry fighting vehicles, another nine armored fighting vehicles were destroyed and two Su-25 attack aircraft were shot down. “Another attempted offensive by the enemy has failed miserably,” he concluded.