Russia Seeks to Divert Ukrainian Forces Away From Counteroffensive

LYMAN, Ukraine—As Ukrainian forces press a slow and costly counteroffensive to retake Russian-occupied territory in the south and east of the country, Moscow’s troops in one corner of northeastern Ukraine are pushing back in an effort to divert Kyiv’s army.

“They are constantly trying to advance, but we are fighting back,” said Lt. Oleksandr Zhytar, the commander of a howitzer battery stationed in hilly fields near the northeastern town of Lyman.

On a recent day, a Russian tank threatened Zhytar’s position, and the slim 21-year-old with an earring had to work fast.

After plotting the tank’s location on a tablet computer connected to the internet via Starlink, Zhytar gave the order to fire. A Ukrainian Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer emerged from the nearby woods and fired off two quick shots that made the tank retreat—for now.

On the front line here and further north, Russian forces have launched repeated attacks against Ukrainian forces in recent weeks. Ukrainian officials have warned that Russia is massing troops near the northern city of Kupyansk, which Kyiv’s army retook from Moscow during a lightning offensive last fall.

The aim is to prevent Kyiv from deploying more troops and equipment to other fronts in the south, where Ukrainian forces are assaulting entrenched Russian positions as part of a counteroffensive using troops trained and equipped by the West. While progress has been difficult, Ukrainian forces have recently seized most of the dominant heights around Bakhmut, threatening Russia’s hold on the eastern city it captured two months ago after a long and bloody urban battle.

“Just after we take the initiative and start advances, the enemy immediately gets active in the additional directions in order to distract us and stretch out forces,” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said this week.

The area around Lyman is the most heavily shelled on the eastern front, Col. Serhiy Cherevatiy, a spokesman for Ukraine’s armed forces, said in a recent television appearance. “The enemy is concentrating a strong group of airborne and infantry units there,” he said.

In the city of Lyman, blood stains are still visible on the pavement after the morning of July 8, when Russian troops shelled a street market with multiple-rocket launchers. At least eight people were killed and more than a dozen wounded, according to police.

“Two women who were selling milk were killed here,” said a local woman who left the market minutes before the shelling began.

Ukrainian soldiers say the Russians have recently started targeting crowded places like shops and cafes, where soldiers gather alongside civilians. About a week before the Lyman shelling, a Russian missile destroyed a popular pizza restaurant in nearby Kramatorsk, killing more than a dozen people.

Ukrainian soldiers are spread across the hilly landscape to the north of the industrial centers of the Donbas area. They are often stationed in simple village houses abandoned by their owners.

In one is Lt. Oleksandr Yabchanka, a volunteer fighter and former pediatrician who is convalescing after he was injured during the fierce fight for Bakhmut. He and his teammates were trying to recover a wounded soldier when a Russian surveillance drone spotted them. Mortar fire rained down on them and one wounded soldier became 11, a sign of how Russia has caught up with Ukraine’s earlier advantage in aerial drones and may have surpassed it.

Yabchanka said Ukraine desperately needs more air-defense systems capable of detecting and shooting down drones, such as the Gepard, a German-made antiaircraft gun equipped with radars and mounted on a tank chassis.

Russia’s invasion has turned into a war of attrition, and Ukraine needs to find ways to reduce risks to soldiers, he said, citing the example of Ukrainian engineers who are testing remote-controlled gun turrets.

“The Russians will fight as long as they can, and we will fight as long as necessary,” he said.

In another nearby village, artillery commander Zhytar recalled the last major attack on Lyman that Russians made on July 1, deploying tanks, armored personnel carriers, infantry and artillery to try to break through. The Ukrainians managed to stop them thanks to massive artillery fire.

Zhytar lives in an abandoned village house with another soldier and two kittens. He works under the shade of a canopy at a table holding several radios, a notepad, packs of cigarettes and cups of coffee.

When Russian troops attacked Kyiv in spring last year, Zhytar was pulled from his studies at a military academy to serve as the commander of a Gvozdika crew. After the Russians withdrew, he graduated early due to the war and was dispatched to the east, already with impaired hearing in one ear after a Russian shell struck near the howitzer.

Here in the northwest, the Russians are now employing new tactics by sending small infantry groups at night to dig in at new positions. “They are skilled with their shovels,” he said.

But Ukrainian troops are, so far, holding firm. Zhytar said his Soviet-era Gvozdika howitzer, whose name translates as Carnation, is highly accurate.

After receiving a new report on the radio that the same tank was again attempting to advance, Zhytar again called his team into action.

The first shot was a hit, and he received a report that the surveillance drone showed smoke coming from the Russian tank, indicating damage.

“We are having a lucky day today,” Zhytar said.