Ukrainian counterattack Forces Slow Russian offensive

Ukraine's Defence Ministry said on Tuesday that its forces had recovered Makarivin, a suburb of Kiev's capital, following fierce fighting.

Ukraine's army also appears to have launched a counterattack in the eastern town of Izyum, 120km southeast of Kharkiwi, and in areas near the town of Kherson, in the southern part of the country.

American officials refused to comment on Ukraine's efforts, but they said that in some parts of the country, energy seems to be changing.

“We have seen indications that Ukrainians are jumping slightly more into the attack now”, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters late Tuesday.

John Kirby
“They have been highly protected, very cleverly, very innovative in countries they believe are the right places to protect”, he said. “And we've now seen them in some places, especially south near Kherson, that they've tried to regain territory”.

Other American officials were even more open to the state of Russian military operations.

“Russia has so far failed markedly”, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters about Ukraine's Kremlin plans.

Whether Russia takes a city, takes a city or takes more territory, they will never be able to achieve the goal they decided... that it was to make this country kneel”, he said. Ukrainian brave citizens are refusing to surrender. They're fighting”.

In English-language reports on the Telegram network, Russia's Defence Ministry portrayed a completely different war effort, praising Russian forces advancing to parts of southeastern Ukraine, while Ukrainian forces fled and claimed success in the extermination of Ukraine's warehouses and fuel deposits with high <x0-pressure and long-range action”.

A senior US defence official, informing journalists on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence data, confirmed that Russian ships at the Azov Sea had begun bombing the Ukrainian town of Marioupol, which has been attacked for many days.

Russian tanks destroyed in Ukraine's Sumy region
But the official said that other intelligence data suggests Russia's invasion of Ukraine has become a logistics nightmare, with Russian forces still struggling to overcome properly run fuel, food and ammunition shortages.

Pentagon officials said on Tuesday that these shortages could be part of the reason that Russia “in at least one case” has used an advanced hypersonic missile to eliminate a Ukrainian military storage facility, a movement which an official described as “abibist”.

Even basic supplies seem missing.

We received some signals that some of their soldiers are suffering from frost because they lack adequate equipment for the cold weather”, the official said. “The troops actually suffered and [have] been removed from the fight”.

* Some of the data for this article were received by Associated Press, AFP and Reuters news agencies.