Ukraine Summer Offensive Update Sept 2: ‘You Can’t Deny, Ukraine Has Made Progress’

Overview

• Ukraine says troops have broken through some first lines of Russian defense 
• Washington says Kyiv making “notable progress” in counteroffensive
• Kyiv releases video of Leopard tanks assembling 
• Three Ukrainian drones targeting Crimea Bridge “destroyed”
• Russia “risks dividing its forces”
• Kyiv releases footage of drone strike on Pskov airfield

Ukraine says troops have broken through some first lines of Russian defense 

Ukraine said on Friday its troops had broken through the first line of Russian defenses in several areas of the southern front but added they had then come up against even more heavily fortified positions. 

Speaking to Ukrainian TV, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar, said: “There is an offensive in several directions and in certain areas. And in some places, in certain areas, this first line was broken through.

“Our armed forces have to overcome a lot of obstacles in order to move forward.”

Kyiv’s forces have managed in parts of the south of the country to successfully negotiate heavy artillery fire and dense minefields, only to come up against a second line of solidly-built concrete fortifications.

Washington says Kyiv making “notable progress”

Ukraine's forces in recent days have made “notable progress” against Russian troops in their southern offensive, the White House said on Friday. 

Asked about criticism that Kyiv's southern campaign against occupying Russian forces has not advanced much in three months, White House national security spokesman John Kirby conceded that the fight has gone slower than Ukraine itself had hoped. 

“That said, we have noted over the last 72 hours or so some notable progress by Ukrainian armed forces on that southern line,” Kirby told reporters. 

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“They have achieved some success against that second line of Russian defenses,” he said. 

In recent days, Western battlefield analyses have shown Ukrainian forces penetrating Russian lines for several kilometers (miles) between Robotyne and Verbove in the Zaporizhzhia region. 

Kyiv's aim is to advance directly south to the Sea of Azov, cutting off Russian land access to occupied Crimea. 

But Russian forces have established long and deep barriers across the terrain, including tank traps, minefields and other defenses, to slow Ukraine's advance. 

“We've all seen the criticism by anonymous officials out there, which frankly is not helpful” to Ukraine's battlefield effort, Kirby said. 

“Any objective observer of this counteroffensive, you can't deny... that they have made progress now,” Kirby added.

Kyiv releases video of Leopard tanks assembling 

ANALYSIS

Kyiv Post has two pieces of exclusive analysis today:

• The Beginning of the End of Putin in Crimea
• How Long Can Russia Sustain the War in Ukraine?

Russia “risks dividing its forces”

Russia risks dividing its forces, the British Ministry of Defense has said, as it seeks to prevent a Ukrainian breakthrough in the south of the country.

Three Ukrainian drones targeting Crimea Bridge “destroyed”

Russia destroyed three Ukrainian naval drones that targeted the Crimea bridge, Moscow said early on Saturday morning. 

“On September 2, at about 02.20 am Moscow time (2320 GMT Friday), the third Ukrainian semi-submersible unmanned boat, sent by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack on the Crimean bridge, was destroyed in the Black Sea,” Russia's Ministry of Defense said on Telegram. 

One drone was destroyed Friday and two others early Saturday, it said. 

Kyiv, which says it plans to take Crimea back, has repeatedly targeted the strategic bridge that connects the peninsula to the Russian mainland.

Operations – Luhansk region

Russia on Friday said it captured several strategic heights near Kupyansk, an eastern Ukrainian city where Moscow's troops stepped up pressure in August.

"In the direction of Kupiansk, units of the Western group of forces improved the tactical position by capturing enemy strongholds and key heights," the Russian defence ministry said. It also claimed Ukrainian forces had sustained "significant" losses.

The Russian claims have not been independently verified.

Russian forces continued limited offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on September 1 but did not make any confirmed advances, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported.

The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive actions near Novoselivske (15km northwest of Svatove) and Novoyehorivka (16km southwest of Svatove).

Operations – Donetsk region

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations near Bakhmut on September 1 and made marginal advances south of Bakhmut, the ISW reported.

Geolocated footage published on September 1 indicates that Ukrainian forces made marginal advances northwest of Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut).

Russian “Vostok” Battalion commander Alexander Khodakovsky continues to highlight the impact of the lack of Russian counter-battery capabilities on Russian morale in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area.

Kyiv releases footage of drone strike on Pskov airfield

Ukraine released footage showing the moment one of its drones struck and apparently destroyed a Russian military aircraft earlier in the week.

Clandestine operators flying drones from a secret Russian launch site were responsible for the attack, Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukrainian army military intelligence, told a US-based defense publication. 

Two Russian air force Il-76 four-engine military cargo jets (NATO designation CANDID) were totally destroyed, two more were very likely damaged beyond repair, and as many as three more were hit by explosions and debris and possibly grounded following a strike on the Kresty airfield near the northwestern Russian city of Pskov, the American publication The War Zone (TWZ) reported on Thursday. 

Kresty Air Base is about 700 miles northwest of the Ukrainian border, near the NATO member state Estonia. According to local reports and official Russian statements, between 15 and 20 drones were used in the attack.