Kyiv sends first armour through Breach in Russian defences

Kyiv’s military seeks to expand the limited breakthrough in the southeast at pivotal moment in its counteroffensive.

A Ukrainian soldier and a Bradley armoured vehicle close to the front line in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region. Picture: Reuters

Ukrainian forces have breached the main Russian defensive line in the southeast of the country with armoured vehicles, a significant milestone in the 3 1/2 -month counteroffensive aimed at cutting Russia’s occupying army in two.

Ukrainian troops overcame antitank obstacles including ditches and concrete blocks known as dragon’s teeth near the village of Verbove in the Zaporizhzhia region, allowing armoured vehicles to press through, an officer in Ukraine’s air-assault forces in the area said. Open-source intelligence assessments of Russian videos showing artillery strikes on Ukrainian vehicles appeared to confirm the breakthrough.

The breach is small and heavily contested. The Russians are hammering the area with artillery and launching counter-attacks. Ukrainian units are taking heavy casualties.

But if the Ukrainians can establish a firm foothold, they could seek to drive more armoured vehicles through the gap and punch into less heavily fortified areas.

“We are pushing through,” the Ukrainian officer said. “We are destroying them. But the price …”

The development puts Ukraine’s counteroffensive at a pivotal moment. Ukraine wants to thrust south toward the Sea of Azov to cut Russian supply lines along a band of territory that connects the Russian mainland and the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow seized in 2014. The aim is to hamper Russia’s efforts to hold on to the nearly 20% of Ukraine that it still occupies.

Even if Ukrainian troops can’t reach the coast, further advances could allow them to target Russia’s supply lines with rockets and artillery, hampering Moscow’s ability to support its occupation forces.

Ukrainian officials say they need more weapons deliveries from the U.S. and its allies to speed up advances and capitalise on progress. They want long-range missiles to target Russian military logistics and choke supplies to frontline troops, as well as air-defence systems to protect Ukrainian soldiers pushing forward.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met President Biden at the White House on Thursday following meetings with lawmakers from both parties on Capitol Hill and with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon to pitch for further aid.

Ukraine’s Western allies provided thousands of troops with training and equipment, including tanks, for the counteroffensive. But initial attempts in June to break through Russian defences in armoured columns were thwarted by dense Russian fortifications, including vast minefields and deep trenches covered by artillery and helicopters.

The Ukrainians switched tactics in an effort to preserve soldiers and vehicles, methodically degrading Russian artillery and ammunition supplies. Small infantry units advanced tree line by tree line. Progress was slow, but in recent weeks Ukraine expanded a bulge in the front around the village of Robotyne.

In late August, Ukrainian paratroopers penetrated the main Russian defensive line near Verbove, an agricultural village to the east of Robotyne, and began fighting their way through trenches, antitank obstacles and minefields.

Russia responded to the Ukrainian advance by deploying some of its strongest airborne units to the front, according to several Ukrainian officers in the area. The Ukrainian air-assault officer said radio intercepts indicated that Russia had sent up reserves from Tokmak, a Russian logistics hub and key Ukrainian target to the south, leaving only a small garrison there.

Russian defence near Verbove is particularly fierce. They are using phosphorus munitions that explode in the sky like fireworks then rain down on earth, burning whatever they land on. The Russians have used them to burn tree lines where Ukrainian troops captured trenches, forcing them to abandon the positions under artillery fire, the officer said.

But the Ukrainians pressed forward. Their infantry stormed into enemy trenches and cleared them, holding them under artillery and tank fire and counter-attacks by infantry, according to Ukrainian soldiers there and videos that they shared online.

The immediate result of the armoured vehicles’ breaching of the line was unclear. Some of them were destroyed or damaged, the officer said. Ukraine has lost many Western-donated armoured vehicles, but their armour has protected troops inside, allowing them to continue fighting.

If Ukrainian units can establish a foothold, they will look to expand it so that they can push through more armoured vehicles, then move forward artillery to blast a wider channel.

Ukraine is also pressing toward the fortified Russian line elsewhere in the bulge. To the south of Robotyne, Ukrainian troops have reached the edge of Novoprokopivka, the next village. Further breaches would force Russian commanders to spread infantry and artillery thinner.

The advance has been hard and costly. A unit from the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade, in action since the start of the counteroffensive, ejected Russian soldiers from a trench on the southern front earlier this month. Then, a tank shell smashed into the position, blowing Pvt. Olena Ivanenko, a member of the platoon, off her feet and bruising her ribs.

She had only just returned to the front after spending three months recovering from a leg injury and was again out of action, this time for a few days.

Fighting for trenches takes place at a distance of a few yards. Trenches taken can be lost hours later.

“It’s like an accordion,” said 41-year-old Ivanenko, a former restaurateur who is now part of the 47th’s assault infantry. “When we push forward, the enemy pushes back.” The Russian troops in the frontline trenches are often of poor quality and known as “earth movers” by the Ukrainians, Ivanenko said. But when Ukrainian infantry troops move in to seize trenches, the Russians hit back with stronger assault troops.

Russian positions are often mined and packed with equipment abandoned by fleeing soldiers, from ammunition to grenades and night-vision goggles.

The path ahead remains fraught for Ukraine. Their forces have been depleted by the long and bloody fight across open farming fields. Russia is bolstering fortifications, including trenches, behind the areas where Ukraine is concentrating its assaults.

“We’re fighting with everything we’ve got,” said a second Ukrainian officer in the area.

Oksana Grytsenko and Ievgeniia Sivorka contributed to this article

The Wall Street Journal