A Russian oil depot hit by a drone attack in Sevastopol, Russian villages near Belgorod, close to the Ukrainian border, deprived of electricity following artillery fire, as is the village of Nova Kakhovka near Kherson in the South… In a few hours this Saturday, April 29, the Ukrainian army hit the Russians hard at three very distant points.
All-out Ukrainian strikes at the start of the weekend, when the army had been saying for several days that it was completing “final preparations” for its spring counter-offensive. Would she have already turned it on? “The Ukrainians have never forbidden themselves from hitting these positions”, nuance Cédric Mas, military historian and analyst of the conflict. The strike in Sevastopol, Crimea, for example, would have a double utility according to the specialist: it neutralizes a strategic oil depot for the Russian fleet, and “sends a strong signal”.
While waiting for the launch of the counter-offensive, it is for the Ukrainians to “show that they are still active, and support the morale of the country by saying that they are fighting back”. The Ukrainian strikes this Saturday come in the aftermath of several deadly bombings, including one that killed more than twenty people in the Ukrainian city of Uman.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also warned, in a message on Telegram this Saturday, that “every attack, every evil act against [his] country and [his] people brings the terrorist state closer to failure and punishment. “. This waiting phase, anticipates Cédric Mas, will see the multiplication of “informational operations” on the part of the two camps, for the purpose of communication more than purely tactical.
The declarations of the Ukrainians on the imminence of their counter-offensive are part of this framework and make it possible to “save time”, estimates Édouard Jolly, researcher in theory of armed conflicts at the Institute of strategic research of the Military School (IRSEM), in an interview with Le Figaro. During this time, the Ukrainians maintain, with these attacks, the uncertainty on the side of the enemy.
The tactic, explains Édouard Jolly, consists in “accustoming the adversary to believing himself threatened, by putting him on permanent alert”. “This is exactly what the Chinese army is doing in Taiwan by sending planes regularly so that, by dint of being on alert every day, the camp opposite can no longer distinguish a false warning of a real attack.
On the front, to impress the enemy, the artillery fire redoubled in intensity. “The Russians have also resumed their hammering from the front, the testimonies we have tell us that it hits a lot”, reports Cédric Mas, according to whom, given the renewed activity, “Ukrainians as well as Russians had to receive ammunition”.
This “strategic waiting phase” allows, according to the military historian, the two parties to prepare themselves while waiting for this counter-offensive. This will depend in particular, he believes, “on the weather, ammunition stocks and their ability to surprise the Russians”. In the meantime, summarizes Cédric Mas, it is a question of not lowering his guard and maintaining the pressure: “It’s a waiting phase, but certainly not a relaxation phase.”
