Ukraine's Secret Offensive Revealed By Zelensky - Is It A Success?

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Russia-Ukraine

For seven months, Ukraine's General Staff maintained a near-total information blackout over the Oleksandrivka axis. On August 12, that ended. President Zelenskyy announced that Air Assault Forces and attached units had conducted an offensive operation on the front from January through August, liberating 745 square kilometres and returning 26 villages in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts to Ukrainian control. He described the operation as carried out with precision, exactly as planned, and put Russian losses at a minimum of 9,550 killed and more than 6,600 wounded. Commander-in-Chief Mykhailo Drapatyi detailed a two-stage structure, with the first phase launched on January 29 and the second on August 5.

The announcement allowed independent mappers to finally publish what they had been sitting on. DeepState released a map confirming the liberation of settlements including Zelenyi Hai, Yalta, Piddubne, Myrne, Voskresenka, Berezove and Krasnohirske, with Russian forces also pushed back around Novopavlivka, Novohryhorivka and Zaporizhzhia village. The scale of the blackout was itself notable. Ukrainian OSINT projects reportedly froze frontline updates in the sector under official pressure, leaving analysts to reconstruct the picture from Russian mapping, airstrike geolocation and satellite imagery.

ISW's assessment adds important context on what the operation does and does not demonstrate. The institute's key takeaway is that the Oleksandrivka counteroffensive showcases Ukraine's ability to make relatively significant tactical advances and reintroduce limited elements of mechanised manoeuvre on localised segments of the front, with likely cascading effects on adjacent sectors. ISW also notes that Russian forces lost roughly 234 square kilometres across the entire frontline when accounting only for the January 29 to August window, a figure that frames the 745 square kilometre claim as cumulative recaptured ground rather than net frontline change.

Now, I have my comments about ISW regarding their bias and fixing odds on a certain prediction market – but they’re correct here. It wasn’t as no one knew that this operation was happening for the most part, it was rather how much consolidation Ukraine had on the greyzone. As I’ve mentioned previously, Ukraine has shown since Dobropillya and Kupiansk that they can muster enough force for a counteroffensive – locally at least. Yet the operational history is messier than Kyiv's framing suggests. Earlier reporting from the sector indicates the February phase originally pursued more ambitious objectives around Huliaipole before being scaled back, and then-Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi had already disclosed in early April that 480 square kilometres and 12 settlements had been retaken, noting February marked the first time since Kursk that Ukraine liberated more territory than Russia captured. The timing of the full reveal, alongside strikes on Novorossiysk and TANECO, suggests a coordinated messaging push ahead of autumn diplomacy. Furthermore, the coordinated messaging comes after Ukraine’s failed 40-day campaign to force Russia into ending the war.

Pro-Ukrainian analysts who oppose the Zelensky government, such as AMK Mapping, are less positive than many of their OSINT counterparts. They argue that this is largely a waste of manpower and resources, given that other, more strategically important sectors of the front require greater attention. For example, the Oleksandrivka axis is largely a secondary priority for Russian forces, just as it was for Ukraine. Russia’s sudden advance toward Huliaipole and Pokrovske was partly enabled by poorly coordinated and undersupplied Ukrainian units, as well as neglected defensive positions.

A good example of what AMK is saying.