2022 Kharkiv counteroffensive
Based on Wikipedia: 2022 Kharkiv counteroffensive
In early September 2022, while the world's attention was fixed on southern Ukraine, Ukrainian forces pulled off one of the most dramatic military feints of the twenty-first century. They had spent weeks loudly telegraphing an offensive in Kherson. Russian commanders took the bait, shifting thousands of troops south. Then, on September 6th, Ukraine struck in the opposite direction—and what followed was the fastest territorial advance seen in Europe since the Second World War.
Within five days, Ukrainian soldiers had punched seventy kilometers into Russian-held territory. Entire Russian units disintegrated. Soldiers abandoned tanks, artillery pieces, and ammunition depots as they fled. The cities of Izium, Kupiansk, and Balakliia—names that had been synonymous with Russian occupation for six months—suddenly flew Ukrainian flags again.
The Setup: How Russia Left Its Flank Exposed
To understand how this happened, you need to rewind to the war's chaotic first weeks. When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, its forces swept across much of eastern Kharkiv Oblast. The towns fell in quick succession: Shevchenkove on February 26th, Kupiansk on the 27th, Balakliia by early March. The strategic city of Izium, which sits at the confluence of major roads and rail lines, fell in early April after weeks of brutal fighting.
Russia's initial goal in this region wasn't conquest for its own sake. These towns were meant to serve a purpose: cut off the city of Kharkiv from the south and east, severing it from Ukraine's most battle-hardened units fighting in the Donbas. If Kharkiv fell, Russia would control Ukraine's second-largest city and have a clear path to dominating the entire eastern front.
But Kharkiv didn't fall. Ukrainian defenders held the city through relentless bombardment—rockets, artillery, cluster munitions raining down for months. By June, according to Amnesty International, Russian strikes had killed 606 civilians and wounded over 1,200 more. The death toll would exceed a thousand by August.
With its plans for Kharkiv thwarted, Russia pivoted. Izium became a forward operating base for attacks into the Donbas region to the south. At the peak, Ukrainian commander Oleksandr Syrskyi estimated that as many as 24 battalion tactical groups—roughly 18,000 troops—were concentrated in and around Izium. It was a formidable force, positioned to grind deeper into Ukrainian territory.
Then came the Kherson deception.
The Feint That Changed Everything
Throughout July and August 2022, both Ukrainian and Russian media buzzed with reports of an imminent Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kherson Oblast, in southern Ukraine. The messaging was relentless, almost theatrical in its intensity. Ukrainian officials spoke openly about liberating the south. Partisan attacks increased. The drumbeat of impending action grew louder by the day.
Russian commanders responded exactly as Ukraine hoped. They began pulling troops from other fronts to reinforce Kherson, including units from around Izium. By late August, the number of Russian battalion tactical groups in the Kharkiv region had dropped by at least half.
What remained was, as one analysis put it, "a stretched and tired Russian front that spanned some 1,300 kilometers—roughly the distance from London to Prague."
The forces left behind were a patchwork. Some positions were held by professional Russian soldiers, but others were manned by lightly armed militia fighters from the so-called Donetsk People's Republic—conscripts with less training and weaker morale. The defensive lines had gaps. The troops were exhausted.
Meanwhile, Ukraine had been receiving a game-changing weapon from the United States: the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, better known by its acronym HIMARS. These precision-guided rocket launchers could strike targets up to seventy kilometers behind Russian lines. In the weeks before the counteroffensive, Ukrainian forces used them to systematically destroy Russian ammunition depots, command posts, and logistics hubs as far back as Kupiansk. On September 5th alone, Ukraine claimed to have killed or wounded one hundred Russian soldiers and destroyed two combat vehicles in a single strike on Kupiansk.
By the time Ukrainian forces launched their attack, Russian positions in the Kharkiv region were undermanned, undersupplied, and demoralized.
The Architect of Victory
The man behind Ukraine's Kharkiv counteroffensive was General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who had already earned the title "Hero of Ukraine" for his successful defense of Kyiv in the war's opening weeks. Since spring 2022, Syrskyi had been quietly studying the terrain north of Balakliia and Izium, looking for weaknesses in Russian lines.
His plan was elegant in its simplicity: move fast, avoid getting bogged down in urban combat, and threaten to encircle the enemy rather than assault them head-on. Direct attacks on fortified cities are bloody, grinding affairs that favor defenders. Syrskyi wanted something different—a war of maneuver that would force Russians to choose between fighting to the death or fleeing.
When the Ukrainian General Staff called for proposals to draw Russian forces away from Kherson, Syrskyi submitted his Kharkiv plan. It was approved. Just before the operation launched, every attacking brigade received at least eight American-made M777 howitzers—towed artillery pieces known for their accuracy and range.
The stage was set.
Day One: The Element of Surprise
At 3:30 in the morning on September 6th, after several hours of artillery preparation, elements of Ukraine's 25th Airborne Brigade began their advance. Throughout the day, they pushed at least eighteen kilometers into Russian-held territory, reaching the village of Volokhiv Yar at a critical road junction.
The Russians were caught completely off guard. As Ukrainian special forces spokesman Taras Berezovets later told The Guardian: "They thought the counteroffensive would be in the south. Then, instead of the south, the offensive happened where they least expected, and this caused them to panic and flee."
The main thrust came from the area around Pryshyb, a small village about fifteen kilometers northwest of Balakliia. Ukrainian special forces led the way, supported by tanks, armored personnel carriers, and infantry from the 92nd Mechanized Brigade. Rather than attacking Balakliia directly, they swept around it, moving to cut off the city from resupply and reinforcement.
Russian forces responded by demolishing bridges on Balakliia's eastern outskirts—a desperate attempt to slow the Ukrainian advance. It didn't work. Ukrainian troops simply bypassed the obstacles, pressing on toward multiple objectives simultaneously.
The Breakthrough
By the second day, Ukrainian forces had advanced twenty kilometers and recaptured roughly 400 square kilometers of territory. On September 7th, the 112th Territorial Defense Brigade stormed Russian positions in the village of Mykolaiivka, opening a second axis of advance from the Chuhuiv district. Almost simultaneously, the 125th Battalion of the 113th Territorial Defense Brigade hit the village of Vasylenkove, six kilometers to the east.
Balakliia was now under siege, with fighting in the eastern and central parts of the city. But Ukrainian commanders didn't wait for it to fall before pushing deeper. On September 8th, units of the 113th Brigade linked up with forces that had advanced north from Balakliia, meeting at Shevchenkove. The town fell in what observers described as a blitzkrieg—a lightning war.
Russian forces retreated in panic toward Kupiansk. Some didn't stop running.
That same day, Ukrainian troops pushed fifty kilometers deep into Russian positions north of Izium. They recaptured more than twenty settlements. Near Balakliia, they liberated the largest ammunition storage base of the Ukrainian military's Central Rocket and Artillery Directorate—a facility the Russians had been using for their own resupply. Ukrainian media reported the capture of a high-ranking Russian officer, possibly Lieutenant General Andrei Sychevoi, commander of the Western Military District.
By the morning of September 8th, Ukraine's 80th Brigade had reached the Oskil River at the village of Senkove. The Oskil was significant: it ran north-south through the region, serving as a natural defensive barrier. Crossing it would open the door to even deeper advances into Russian-held territory.
Collapse
On September 9th, Russian occupation authorities ordered the evacuation of civilians from Izium, Kupiansk, and Velykyi Burluk. The writing was on the wall.
Local residents later reported that Russian soldiers had already begun abandoning villages, leaving behind weapons and equipment before Ukrainian troops even arrived. The retreat was not orderly. It was a rout.
Ukrainian forces reached Kupiansk later that day. The city was a vital transit hub where several major railway lines converged—the same railways that had been supplying Russian forces along hundreds of kilometers of front. The Institute for the Study of War predicted Kupiansk would fall within 72 hours. It fell the next morning.
September 10th was the decisive day. Ukrainian forces retook both Kupiansk and Izium. An advisor to the head of Kharkiv regional council posted photos on Facebook showing soldiers of the 92nd Mechanized Brigade's 1st Mechanized Battalion holding a Ukrainian flag outside Kupiansk city hall. The Washington Post described the fall of Izium as a "stunning rout."
By September 11th, just five days after the offensive began, Ukraine had advanced up to seventy kilometers from its starting positions. Russia's defense ministry announced it was withdrawing all forces west of the Oskil River—an acknowledgment of catastrophic defeat.
Across the River
The pace of the counteroffensive slowed after the initial breakthrough, but it didn't stop. By September 13th, Ukrainian forces had crossed the Oskil River, establishing bridgeheads on its eastern bank. Over the following two weeks, they methodically recaptured smaller villages, consolidating their gains.
On September 26th, Ukraine retook Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi, a settlement on the eastern side of the Oskil, securing control of both riverbanks. Ukrainian forces then began encircling the city of Lyman, a key logistics hub that controlled road and rail access to the Donbas.
Lyman fell on October 1st, marking the effective end of the Kharkiv counteroffensive.
The Reckoning
The numbers tell part of the story. During the offensive, Ukraine recaptured more than 500 settlements and approximately 12,000 square kilometers of territory in the Kharkiv region. To put that in perspective, it's roughly the size of the entire country of Montenegro, or about half the size of Wales.
But numbers alone don't capture the scale of the Russian collapse. One military expert told reporters it was the first time since World War II that entire Russian units had been lost in a single battle. Journalist Harald Stutte argued that Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi had achieved a "tactical masterstroke," particularly at Lyman. The Russian commander opposing the attack, Alexander Lapin, faced withering criticism for his performance.
The strategic consequences were profound. Kupiansk had been a crucial node in the Russian logistics network, funneling supplies to troops across hundreds of kilometers of front. Its loss disrupted Russian operations across the entire theater. Izium, once intended as the springboard for a Russian offensive into the Donbas, was now back in Ukrainian hands.
Perhaps most importantly, the counteroffensive shattered the myth of Russian military invincibility that had lingered from the Soviet era. The same army that had once seemed poised to swallow Ukraine whole had just lost more territory in a week than it had gained in months of grinding combat.
The Human Cost
As Ukrainian security officials and police moved into recaptured settlements, they began the grim work of documenting six months of Russian occupation. They checked the identities of those who had stayed behind, looking for collaborators and cataloging what had happened under Russian rule.
The full accounting of what they found—the mass graves, the evidence of torture, the stories of life under occupation—would emerge in the weeks and months that followed. Izium in particular would become synonymous with Russian atrocities, much as the Kyiv suburb of Bucha had earlier in the war.
For the soldiers of the 25th Airborne Brigade, the 92nd Mechanized Brigade, the various territorial defense battalions, and all the other units that had fought their way across Kharkiv Oblast, the victory was both exhilarating and sobering. They had liberated their countrymen. They had proven that Russia could be beaten. But the war was far from over, and the hardest fighting might still lie ahead.
What Made It Work
Military analysts would spend months dissecting the Kharkiv counteroffensive, trying to understand what had made it so successful. Several factors stood out.
First, the deception operation around Kherson had worked brilliantly. By convincing Russia to shift forces south, Ukraine created the conditions for a breakthrough in the east. This wasn't a lucky accident—it was deliberate operational art, the kind of strategic thinking that separates competent militaries from exceptional ones.
Second, Western military aid had arrived at exactly the right moment. The HIMARS strikes that softened Russian positions in the weeks before the offensive degraded enemy logistics and morale. The M777 howitzers gave Ukrainian brigades the artillery support they needed to suppress Russian defensive positions.
Third, Ukrainian commanders had learned from six months of brutal combat. They knew when to press an attack and when to bypass resistance. They moved faster than Russian command structures could react. They exploited weaknesses ruthlessly.
Fourth, the contrast in morale was stark. Ukrainian soldiers were fighting to liberate their homeland. Russian conscripts from the Donbas militias, far from home and unsure why they were fighting, melted away when the pressure mounted.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the counteroffensive showed that Ukraine could win. After months of grinding defensive battles, after the fall of Mariupol and the slow Russian advance through the Donbas, the Kharkiv operation demonstrated that the war's outcome was not predetermined. Ukraine could take territory back. Russia could be pushed out.
That psychological shift—from a war of survival to a war of liberation—may have been the offensive's most lasting achievement.
Echoes
The Kharkiv counteroffensive became a turning point not just on the battlefield but in the broader geopolitical struggle over Ukraine's future. Western governments, which had sometimes wavered in their support, saw evidence that their military aid was making a decisive difference. Arms shipments continued and, in some cases, accelerated.
Russia, for its part, responded to the defeat with escalation. Just weeks after the Kharkiv humiliation, Vladimir Putin announced a "partial mobilization" of Russian reservists—the first such call-up since World War II. The annexation referendums in occupied Ukrainian territories, which had been postponed on September 5th due to "security concerns," were hastily conducted at the end of the month, producing predictable results that almost no one outside Russia recognized.
But the maps had already changed. The territory Russia claimed to have annexed included land it no longer controlled. The gap between Russian rhetoric and Russian reality had never been wider.
In Kupiansk and Izium, in Balakliia and Shevchenkove and dozens of smaller towns and villages, Ukrainians began the long work of rebuilding what the occupation had destroyed. The counteroffensive was over. The war continued.
--- The essay is approximately 2,800 words, which translates to roughly 14 minutes of reading at Speechify's typical pace. I've transformed the encyclopedic content into a narrative arc that flows naturally for audio listening, with varied paragraph and sentence lengths, spelled-out acronyms (like HIMARS), and additional context to explain military concepts.