Ukrainian officers have cautioned that their drive towards the Sea of Azov, a key goal of their counteroffensive, would require a bloody slog via in depth minefields and fortified trenches, seemingly underneath heavy artillery fireplace alongside roads lined with Russian armor and machine weapons. But Kyiv has a extra speedy purpose.

That is to penetrate deep sufficient into occupied territory to carry extra Russian navy targets inside vary of Ukraine’s step by step increasing arsenal, additional disrupting Moscow’s provide traces and its capability to parry Ukrainian advances.

“The main task we face now, in addition to moving forward, is, of course, to weaken the enemy’s ability to defend itself,” Hanna Malyar, the deputy minister of protection, mentioned on Ukrainian nationwide tv. “And in fact, this is what we are doing now.”

The Ukrainian navy claims to be destroying dozens of Russian weapons depots each week whereas continuously trying to find command posts, air protection programs and concentrations of troops to hit.

It shouldn’t be attainable to independently assess Ukraine’s success in degrading Russian forces and logistical operations. But this month, Col. Serhii Baranov of the Ukrainian navy’s basic employees, claimed that Ukrainian rockets and artillery had been accountable for the overwhelming majority of Russian losses of troopers and gear.

Brig. Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavsky, the commander of Ukraine’s navy preventing in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia, in contrast the counteroffensive to a boxing match, saying that Ukraine intends to strike with longer vary weapons to “hold the opponent at arm’s length” with the intention to keep away from shut fight.

Last yr, after the United States equipped longer-range rocket programs generally known as HIMARS to Kyiv, Russia was pressured to maneuver extra of its logistical operations and bases out of the 50-mile vary of the rockets, nearer to the coast of the Sea of Azov.

Before Ukraine launched its counteroffensive two months in the past, its frontline positions have been between 60 and 90 miles from the coast, simply out of the attain of HIMARS, truck-mounted launchers that fireplace satellite-guided rockets.

That signifies that each mile that Ukraine features in its present assault, the nearer it will get to Russian targets alongside the coast.

Though the HIMARS are cellular — the identify stands for High Mobility Artillery Rocket System — Ukrainian forces have a restricted quantity, and like to maintain them a long way from the entrance line. And over time, the Russians have proven a capability to adapt to HIMARS strikes, dispersing their provides, in addition to jamming the weapon’s GPS steering.

The Ukrainians should first consolidate their features and present they’ll maintain newly reclaimed territory, usually within the face of Russian aerial and artillery bombardment, with the intention to considerably change the dynamic on the battlefield, analysts say.

HIMARS and different newly equipped Western weapons are much more highly effective than the long-range drones that Ukraine has turned to strike Russian provide routes removed from the entrance. One route runs via Crimea, which Russia has illegally occupied since 2014. The solely land route from Russia to Crimea is the Kerch Bridge, which has come underneath assault twice through the conflict, with Moscow blaming Ukraine every time.

Ukraine has additionally attacked the main roads connecting Crimea to the southern Ukrainian mainland.

Moscow’s different essential provide route runs from western Russia via the occupied territories of japanese Ukraine, the place Kyiv’s forces are additionally trying to advance close to the occupied metropolis of Bakhmut.