Russian commander accused of shooting unarmed man on bicycle; UK foreign secretary says sanctions on Moscow should only be lifted when all troops leave Ukraine
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The Ukrainian counteroffensive around the north-eastern city of Kharkiv is “starting to look very similar to the counteroffensive that ultimately drove Russian troops away from Kyiv and out of western Ukraine entirely,” the Institute for the Study of War has said in its latest assessment of the conflict.
It was “forcing the Russian command to make hard choices,” including by making Russian units focus their bombardments on attacking Ukrainian troops rather than the city, the US-based think tank continued.
Russian offensives have bogged down every time they hit a built-up area throughout this war, and these areas are unlikely to be different.
Continued and expanding reports of demoralization and refusals to fight among Russian units suggest that the effective combat power of Russian troops in the east continues to be low and may drop further.
They will likely launch a ground offensive on or around Severodonetsk in the coming days. The relative success of Russian operations in this area combined with their failure to advance from Izyum and the notable decline in the energy of that attempted advance suggest that they may be giving up on the Izyum axis.