The US think tank made the assessment in its latest report on the war in Ukraine, published on Wednesday night.
The ISW said: “Ukraine’s northern Kharkiv counteroffensive has not yet culminated after one month of successful operations and is now advancing into western Luhansk Oblast.”
According to the US experts, Ukrainian forces "captured Hrekivka and Makiivka in western Luhansk Oblast (approximately 20 km southwest of Svatove) on October 5.”
Meanwhile, Luhansk Oblast Head Serhiy Haidai reported that Ukrainian forces on Wednesday began liberating villages in the Luhansk region, according to the ISW.
Haidai said in a TV interview that “six settlements have been liberated” on Wednesday, adding that details would be provided by Ukraine’s General Staff, the Ukrainska Pravda website reported.
Meanwhile, the ISW assessed that “Ukrainian forces began the manoeuvre phase of their counteroffensive in Kharkiv Oblast— which has now reached Luhansk Oblast—on September 6.”
West of Luhansk ‘suitable for manoeuvre warfare’
The US experts said that Russian forces “have failed to hold the banks of the Oskil and Siverskyi Donets rivers and leverage them as natural boundaries to prevent Ukrainian forces from projecting into vulnerable sections of Russian-occupied northeast Ukraine.”
Moreover, “the terrain in western Luhansk is suitable for the kind of rapid manoeuvre warfare that Ukrainian forces used effectively in eastern Kharkiv Oblast in early September, and there are no indications from open sources that the Russian military has substantially reinforced western Luhansk Oblast,” the Washington-based think tank reported.
According to the ISW, “Ukraine’s ongoing northern and southern counteroffensives are likely forcing the Kremlin to prioritise the defence of one area of operations at the expense of another, potentially increasing the likelihood of Ukrainian success in both.”
Ukraine retakes more settlements
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s southern counteroffensive also continued on Wednesday, news outlets reported.
President Volodymyr Zelensky announced in his nightly video address: "Only during this day in the Kherson Oblast, such settlements as Novovoskresenske, Novohryhorivka and Petropavlivka were liberated from the sham referendum and stabilised. The movement continues," as quoted by Ukrainska Pravda.
Russia shells Donetsk region, Zaporizhzhia, killing civilians
Russian forces are shelling Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, with four civilians killed and three more injured over the past 24 hours, Polish state news agency PAP reported on Thursday, citing Donetsk Region Head Pavlo Kyrylenko.
Meanwhile, five bodies of people killed by the Russians have been found in the newly liberated city of Sviatohirsk and another five in the recently retaken city of Lyman, Kyrylenko also announced on Thursday, as quoted by PAP.
Bodies of civilians found in mass grave in Ukraine's Lyman
This follows the discovery on Wednesday of a mass grave containing the bodies of 50 civilians killed by the Russians in Lyman, news outlets reported.
Overnight, Russian forces also fired at Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainska Pravda reported.
Zaporizhzhia regional governor Oleksandr Starukh told reporters early on Thursday morning that “the Russians had fired seven rockets at high-rise buildings.“
As a result of the attack, fires broke out in the city and residential buildings were damaged, according to the PAP news agency.
In a later update, Starukh said that two people had been killed.
"One woman has died; another died in the ambulance," he said.
The regional governor added that at least five people were trapped under the rubble and a rescue operation was under way at the scene, Ukrainska Pravda reported.
Starukh said: "Many people have been rescued. Among them is a three-year-old girl - the child has been hospitalised."
The official warned that there was a high possibility of repeated rocket attacks and urged residents to stay in shelters, according to Ukrainska Pravda.
Thursday is day 225 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: understandingwar.org, PAP, pravda.com.ua