kyiv claims first victories in its counter-offensive

These are the first successes claimed by the Ukrainians since the start of their counter-offensive: three villages have reportedly been recaptured from the Russians in the Donetsk region. For its part, the Russian army officially uses a ritual phrase saying: “The attacks of the Ukrainian army were successfully repelled”. But Russian pro-war bloggers recognize it: the Ukrainians have managed to make progress, sometimes by a few hundred meters, sometimes by a few kilometers. They nevertheless play down these advances, since they say that the villages which were taken by the Ukrainians were not really under Russian control, and were located in the gray zone between the two armies.

A network of fortifications consisting of several layers of defense

It is still too early to draw conclusions on the success or failure of this Ukrainian counter-offensive. What is certain is that the Russians took advantage of the winter to build a network of fortifications made up of several layers of defence. There would even be mines between these different lines of defense, explain some experts. Breaking through these lines will be difficult for the Ukrainians. It will take them time. It also risks being costly for them, in terms of equipment and menexplains the journalist from France Télévisions, Luc Lacroix, special correspondent in Skadovsk, in an area controlled by the Russians.