After the events in Mariupol, the main combat actions shifted to the Luhansk region. In late May 2022, Russian troops began an offensive on the 250,000-strong Sievierodonetsk agglomeration. Nearly a month of bloody street fighting ensued in Sievierodonetsk. Although both sides had approximately equal infantry forces, the Russians had a significant advantage in artillery shells (at least 10 to 1), which ultimately decided the battle’s outcome.
On June 14, 2022, the occupiers established control over most of the city. Ten days later, Ukrainian forces retreated from Sievierodonetsk. It seemed they could conduct a prolonged defense in neighboring Lysychansk, which is separated from Sievierodonetsk by a river and situated on a higher right bank. However, by that time, the Russians had achieved successes south of the city, creating a threat of encirclement. On June 28, Ukrainian troops began withdrawing from Lysychansk, and four days later, the occupiers declared capture of the city.
After the fall of Lysychansk, the Kremlin announced full control over the entire Luhansk region. Celebrating the victory, Putin ordered a brief rest for the soldiers who had fought in this sector of the front.
In July and August 2022, there was a relative lull in the war. The Russian army’s goal in the Donbas was to capture Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, but their capabilities were limited. At the end of July, the Kremlin announced plans to hold referendums on the annexed territories joining Russia. Putin hoped that the results of the vote, scheduled for September 11, would lead to a freeze in military actions. Allegedly, after the formal annexation of the captured territories to Russia, the Ukrainian leadership would fear launching an offensive to reclaim them.
To further intimidate Kyiv, the former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threatened in his Telegram channel to use nuclear weapons if the Ukrainian army tried to “attack” the new Russian territories. As subsequent events showed, this bluff deterred no one. The Ukrainian Armed Forces were preparing for an offensive, the primary goal of which was to liberate Kherson.
For the first time since the war began, Ukrainians successfully employed disinformation. In July and August 2022, Ukrainian politicians regularly reported that the main strike of the Armed Forces would target the occupiers’ positions on the right bank of the Dnipro.
On July 9, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk called on national television for residents of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions to leave their homes due to the impending Ukrainian offensive. Residents of occupied Kherson were advised to urgently prepare shelters for themselves.
On the same day, July 9, President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly ordered the Southern Operational Command to reclaim the occupied territories. On July 24, an official of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, Serhiy Khlan, declared that “by September, Kherson region will definitely be liberated, and all the occupiers’ plans will fail.”
The calculation proved correct. The Russian command began hastily strengthening their grouping on the right bank. Since the occupiers then had rather limited resources, this reinforcement occurred at the expense of weakening other front sectors.
In July and August, the Ukrainian army liberated several villages on the right bank, but no major breakthrough occurred. The offensive was very challenging. However, suddenly, the fighting intensified on an entirely different front sector – in the Kharkiv region. On September 6, the Armed Forces of Ukraine broke through the front near the city of Balakliya and within a week liberated a vast area – about 6000 square kilometers, including the cities of Kupiansk and Izium. A few days later, the cities of Lyman and Sviatohirsk were also liberated.
According to Russian military bloggers, Ukrainian forces found the least protected section of the Russian defense, broke through it, and began rapidly advancing deeper into the territory on light armored vehicles, trying to avoid direct combat. Due to the threat of encirclement, the occupiers hastily left the aforementioned cities, abandoning about 200 tanks and other armored vehicles.
Since the front had collapsed, the further intrigue was merely at what line the advancing Ukrainian troops would stop. The offensive momentum began to wane after two weeks. Unfortunately, the Armed Forces lacked the strength to liberate the cities of Svatove and Kreminna in the Luhansk region. They were about 10 kilometers short of reaching both cities. By this time, the Russians had received reinforcements, and the front line stabilized.
As for the offensive on Kherson, it also proceeded according to an unexpected scenario. Ukrainian military decided to focus not on frontal attacks but on missile strikes on logistics, command posts, and supply systems. In this, the invaluable service was provided by American HIMARS systems. At that time, the Russians could not offer anything similar, so the situation for them on the right bank of the Dnipro significantly worsened. After the partial destruction of the Antonivskyi Bridge in Kherson, the supply of troops was threatened.
On November 9, 2022, the commander of the Russian troop group, General Sergey Surovikin, announced the withdrawal of troops from Kherson and the right bank of the Dnipro. According to him, this was necessary because Kherson and nearby settlements could not be adequately defended, and the civilian population was threatened by shelling from the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
On November 10, Ukrainian troops liberated the large village of Snihurivka, then the village of Kyselivka, about 15 kilometers from Kherson. The next day, November 11, the Armed Forces of Ukraine entered Kherson without a fight. It is worth noting that the Russians retreated quite organized, not forgetting to loot local museums and export valuable equipment from local hospitals. Not wanting to complicate the situation, the Ukrainian forces simply waited while the occupiers crossed to the left bank over an improvised bridge of barges connected together near the supports of the destroyed Antonivskyi Bridge.