Extract from ABC News
When Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba last week told critics of his country's counteroffensive to "shut up", accusing them of "spitting in the faces" of frontline soldiers, it was obvious who his fury was directed at.
Key points:
- Ukraine is closing in on Russia's supply lines in the country's south
- Attacks on those lines could prove to be a turning point in the war
- And experts say there's evidence Russian soldiers are "starting to crumble"
Over the past few weeks, anonymous "western officials" have been speaking to US newspapers, giving bleak assessments of Ukraine's counteroffensive and its ability to sever Russia's land bridge to Crimea by the end of the year.
During a visit to Spain last week, Mr Kuleba dared those unnamed critics to "come to Ukraine and try to liberate one square centimetre by themselves".
While the pace of the counteroffensive may have been slower than expected in the past three months, there is cause for optimism amongst western allies over Ukraine's progress in this past week.
On Friday, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby was upbeat in his latest assessment.
"We have noted over the last 72 hours or so, some notable progress by Ukrainian armed forces ... in that southern line of advance coming out of the Zaporizhzhia area," he said.
The recent liberation of the village of Robotyne has been a huge morale boost for Ukrainian forces.
Mr Kuleba described it as the first step to cutting off the land bridge and strangling Russian supply lines.
"We are opening the way to Tokmak and, eventually, Melitopol and the administrative border with Crimea," he said.
It was so-called US intelligence community assessments in the Washington Post on August 17 that predicted that Ukraine would fail to reach the occupied city of Melitopol in its counteroffensive.
Melitopol is around 80 kilometres from Robotyne.
The assessments published in the Post were based on an assumption that you need to recapture the city to cut off the rail and road supply lines that are keeping Russian troops in the fight.
Dr Jan Kallberg, a senior fellow at the Centre for European Policy Analysis and an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the US Military Academy, has told the ABC that assumption is based on flawed logic, and that if Ukraine can push another 10-15km beyond Robotyne, that could be enough.
"You don't really need to reach all the way to Melitopol to have a significant impact on Russia's options. You don't need to reach the shores of the Sea of Azov before logistics start to crumble on the Russian side," he said.
For any fighting force to operate effectively it needs what's referred to as a ground line of communication — a transport route that allows military units to be supplied with food, fuel, artillery, spare parts for vehicles and other reinforcements.
Dr Kallberg said Russia's transport route ran around 7-10km inland of Melitopol, and if Ukraine could punch through another 10-15km of territory from Robotyne, it would be enough to put this key supply line under the range of its rocket launchers and artillery systems.
"A lot of the rear Russian logistics are not driven by low capacity tactical trucks, but instead by regular haulers, private companies with a far higher capacity per truckload," he said.
"If they're under the threat of ongoing artillery barrages on the highways and checkpoints, the civilian part, unless forced to collaborate, will start pulling out."
Dr Kallberg said territorial gains by Ukraine could not only strangle supply routes, but have a huge impact on where Russia staged its command posts and stores its artillery.
"As a commander, you need to be close to the front. But how can you be close to the front when pretty much all the operational areas are under the gun?
"If you start moving artillery shells, let's say 3,000 shells a day, you need stockpiling somewhere. You can't stockpile in the Sea of Azov. You can't stockpile in the ocean."
Following the liberation of Robotyne, Ukraine's armed forces have continued to push in a broad axis towards Tokmak, a crucial strategic and logistical hub for Russia.
Mr Kirby said that Ukraine had "achieved some success against that second line of Russian defences".
Russia has 'one foot out door'
The exiled mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Federov, said via his Telegram channel that after 18 months of occupation, Tokmak was once again becoming a frontline city, and that there were reports that Russian-installed authorities were in the process of fleeing.
"The enemy's defence is cracking, so the first rats run from the sinking Russian ship," he said.
"According to residents, the local occupying 'authority' have one foot out the door, they are being transported to another city."
Nick Reynolds is a research fellow in land warfare from the Royal United Services Institute — an independent defence and security think tank.
He told the ABC that while Russia had set up "deep defences" in most areas, its tiring soldiers had "taken quite a battering".
"To be honest, it looks like they are starting to crumble," he said.
Mr Reynolds said Russia's logistics network in the area was "very well understood".
"You know, it's visible from space," he said.
"And it's quite obvious that area is very significant for them in terms of being able to sustain themselves in theatre.
"So the fact that Ukrainian is getting close to that is, for the Russians, a very bad thing."
As well as being Russia's east-west supply artery, the rail and road corridor is a critical path to the Crimea Peninsula, which Vladimir Putin illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Dr Kallberg said if Ukraine could continue to push forward it will begin to impact those living in occupied Crimea.
"Any disruptions of the Russian logistics will also bear a weight on Crimea's civil population of about one and a half million that themselves need resources," he said.
In an address in Paris last week, Mr Kuleba shed some light on the liberation of Robotyne, which involved 31 fighters.
He said a third of the group, that he believes "opened the way to Tokmak", had no combat experience.
"In 18 hours, they literally crawled on their bellies through kilometres of minefields, where the Russians placed six mines for every square metre," Mr Kuleba said.
"A group of 31 people did the work of an entire battalion, which should have consisted of about 400 people."
Meanwhile Russian forces are battling fatigue and issues around morale.
Mr Reynolds said there were signs the Russian forces were exhausted, and having to spend "weeks or months" at a time on the frontline.
"For contrast, if we look at the British military in World War I, which were also holding trenches, they eventually came to a three-week cycle whereby the troops would spend a week in the frontline, a week in the second line, a week away where they could rest and recuperate.
"That was what was seen as appropriate after a lot of experience of trench warfare.
"Quite simply, the Russians aren't able to do anything close to that and troops are being kept on the front line for extensive periods of time."
Dr Kallberg believes that Russia is facing other hurdles as well.
"They're pulling out of storage drawn artillery pieces that, by Western standards, are 1950s, 1960s standard. And they have lost a lot of their ability to do counter battery fire. They have lost artillery radars. And they're losing artillery at speed," he said.
And he thinks the change in seasons will further help Ukraine.
"All Russian arrangements will be visible when the leaves fall in October, and the Ukrainians have precision long-range firepower. So the Ukrainians can methodically take out position after position."
However nothing is certain in war. Russia has already defied expectations with the strength of its defensive lines that have stalled Ukraine's counteroffensive through a series of minefields, trenches, "dragon's teeth" barricades and anti-tank ditches.
There were reports at the weekend that Russian forces were making the clearing of these minefields even more hazardous by dumping inflammable agents on the areas and igniting them with drone-launched grenades.
Moscow has also moved more troops into the region including elite units to help combat Ukraine's push.
Kamikaze drones have been effectively used by Russia to try and slow the counteroffensive.
Ukraine's lack of air power continues to be a handbrake on its progress.
However Dr Kallberg believes Ukraine can push through that crucial 10-15km before the ground freezes in winter.
"I think [they can] unless the Ukrainians have a morale implosion, where they are taking a lot of casualties and hardship."
He believes as winter approaches the issues around logistics could cripple Russia's ability to fight and that Mr Putin will face a stark choice.
"He can fight on and risk mass troop surrenders, or pull back. Either way the so-called land bridge from Russia to Crimea will be snapped," he said.
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