NYT: Ukraine loses hard-won position near Dnipro River

Ukrainian soldiers captured on the banks of the Dnieper River.

Ukrainian troops have lost a hard-won position on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, near the southern city of Kherson, after months of bloody fighting to hold on to a piece of land in what some Ukrainian soldiers and military analysts have described as a futile operation, writes ‘The New York Times’.

The Ukrainian military said that fighting continued on the eastern bank but that most of the main positions in the village of Krynky, where its troops had gained a foothold, “were destroyed by intense, combined and prolonged enemy fire.” The statement came after several Ukrainian news media outlets reported that Ukrainian forces had withdrawn from the village, which now lies in ruins.

The operation to establish a bridgehead on the Russian-controlled eastern bank of the Dnipro had been controversial from the start. Launched last fall, it was seen as an attempt to open a new front in the south that would disrupt Moscow’s logistics and tie down its troops in the area. But military analysts warned that the operation, which consisted of dangerous river crossings, was vulnerable in its logistics and unlikely to lead to rapid breakthroughs.

Ukrainian gains were limited to small pieces of land near the river, of which Krynky was the most notable.

As fighting to secure the position dragged on for months, Ukrainian soldiers involved in the operation complained that it was brutal and senseless. Soldiers crossing the river on boats were easy targets for Russian drones and mortars. Once they landed on the eastern bank, they had nowhere to hide because the bombed-out terrain had been reduced to a mass of mud and flattened houses.

“From a military point of view, I find it difficult to find some grounds for this operation,” said Emil Kastehelmi, a military analyst with the Finland-based Black Bird Group. “Whatever the initial goals of the operation were, they have most likely not been met.”

The Dnipro River divides the two armies in the south. Ukraine has controlled the western bank since the fall of 2022.

An article published on Wednesday an investigative Ukrainian news outlet reported that at least 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed on the eastern bank or are missing.

By winter, with casualties mounting and Ukraine failing to expand its presence on the eastern bank, Mr. Kastehelmi, of the Black Bird Group, said the operation had become “more politically motivated,” with the goal of showing that Ukraine could still be on the offensive, as doubts increased among Western allies that Kyiv could win the war.

Mr. Kastehelmi said Ukraine did not have the resources to sustain such an attritional fight for months.

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