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Ukraine’s forces continued their rapid advance in the Kharkiv region on Sunday, exploiting an extraordinary collapse of Russian defenses and raising the question of how far they can go.
Unconfirmed reports overnight suggested Kyiv’s troops had taken Velykyi Burluk, a town about 90 kilometers (56 miles) east of Kharkiv and not far from the Russia-Ukraine border. The town of Chkalovske was also retaken, and all eyes are on strategically located Izyum.
Russia’s Defense Minstry on Sunday published a map showing much of the country’s forces out of the Kharkiv region, without commenting further.
“We are starting to advance not only to the south and to the east in the Kharkiv areas but also to the north. 50 kilometers is left until we reach the state border,” Ukraine’s top commander Valery Zaluzhnyi said in a Telegram post.
Zaluzhnyi said his forces had returned 3,000 square kilometers (1,158 square miles) of lost territory to Ukrainian control since the beginning of September. Estimates of regained ground have risen steadily in recent days.
The advance represents Ukraine’s biggest victory since they pushed Russian troops away from the capitol Kyiv in March, and the past few days have been termed among the most consequential of the now 200-day invasion.
Ukraine’s troops have clearly demonstrated their ability to conduct a major counteroffensive and change the course of the conflict, ahead of a difficult winter for European allies supporting Kyiv’s war effort with weapons and cash.
Yet the advances also present Ukrainian commanders and leaders with some tough decisions, as they decide when to halt their advance.
“When you are pursuing an enemy that is broken, there is always significant risk that you become overstretched and expose your flanks,” said Jack Watling, senior research fellow for land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
Watling described the Ukrainian commander in the Kharkiv theater as careful and unlikely to get carried away, meaning the counteroffensive will likely slow to consolidate, and leave any attempt to completely sweep Russian forces out of the region until 2023.
The speed of the rout has likely surprised the Ukrainians themselves, who had aimed to sever critical supply lines to Russian forces in Izyum, a key launching point for the Russian offensive in the eastern Donbas region. Instead, the Russian forces fled.
“Russian morale is very low and when morale is low then a shock can lead to disintegration,” Watling said. “The Russians collapsed and withdrew altogether, and I am sure the Ukrainians were not expecting that.
