Ukraine makes important advance

Amid growing speculation of a Russia-Ukraine stalemate emerges a promising development for Kyiv: Ukrainian troops appear to have made their most significant territorial gains in weeks.

They have advanced this week onto the Russian-occupied east bank of the Dnipro river, where they’ve now established several fortified bridgeheads. 

President Zelensky took to social media to celebrate the news. “The Kherson region’s left bank. Our warriors. I thank them for their strength and for moving forward,” he wrote, next to a photo of Ukrainian troops in small boats reaching the eastern side of the river. 

Moscow too has acknowledged the Ukrainian presence on the east bank. Vladimir Saldo, the Moscow-appointed governor of Russian-occupied Kherson province, said on Telegram that Kyiv’s forces were near the village of Krynky, 18 miles north-east of Kherson city.

Ukraine reclaimed Kherson and areas around the city on the Western bank of the river a year ago, forcing Russian forces to make a humiliating retreat only weeks after Putin had declared it to be a part of Russia. Russian forces were then pushed across the wide river, where they fortified their positions, turning the waterway into a frontline. 

Now, forcing Russian forces to retreat from the eastern riverbank too would bring some respite to civilians in Kherson city, who have been subject to near constant shelling in recent months. The Ukrainians will also be hoping that establishing positions on the eastern side of the river will allow it to push on further towards Russian-annexed Crimea. 

Kyiv has therefore advanced across what is considered one of Russia’s most significant strategic barriers. 

In an otherwise stalled counteroffensive, this piece of good news for Ukraine was much-needed. 

Zelensky will be hoping that it might rouse allies from war fatigue – a fatigue which, as Tim Marshall writes in Reaction, was inadvertently stoked by Ukraine’s top general, when even he told The Economist that the conflict had reached a “stalemate” (something Zelensky later denied). 

While Britain’s enthusiastic new foreign secretary was keen to reinstate the “as long as it takes” message of solidarity on his first trip to Ukraine this week, the reality is that international concern about the prospect of arming and funding a “forever war ” in Ukraine is growing. 

In the US, a funding package passed on Thursday included no additional aid for Ukraine while the EU said this week that it can no longer deliver the munitions it promised. And even David Cameron’s trip to Kyiv on Wednesday came with no additional military funds.

This week’s encouraging battlefield development for Kyiv is too small a gain to draw any wider conclusion about Ukraine now being decisively on the offensive. Indeed, Russia is on the offensive along other parts of the front, notably around the town of Avdiivka, close to occupied Donetsk.

Even so, it’s a boost to morale for exhausted Ukrainian troops. And it may alert the attention of allies who’ve shifted their focus onto the Middle East. 

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