LIGA.net has published an excerpt from the military-historical essay “The Kharkiv Offensive Operation,” dedicated to the first stage of the Kharkiv offensive in the autumn of 2022. The operation was conceived as a diversionary maneuver alongside Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the south.
According to General Anatoliy Barhylevych, Colonel Fedosenko exceeded his assigned objective during the advance: he was supposed to reach a line outside Kupiansk and stop, but reported that he was already in the city and requested an additional battalion to continue advancing.
“Incidentally, Colonel Fedosenko did not carry out his task at the time. He was assigned the task of reaching a line outside Kupiansk and stopping. But then he calls and says: ‘General, I’m already in Kupiansk, give me another battalion, I’m moving further forward.’”
Anatoliy Barhylevych, General
The Kharkiv operation was planned under conditions of “absolute information silence.” The Khortytsia group of forces conducted it using its own resources, without allocated reserves. By the start of the offensive, it had managed to obtain only 30% of the required ammunition.
Ground Forces Commander Oleksandr Syrskyi, who, according to the article, planned and carried out the operation, decided not to wait for the remaining ammunition to arrive. He explained this by the enemy’s intensified aerial reconnaissance over the operational area.
“The enemy began conducting intensified aerial reconnaissance over this area, and it became clear that if we waited for the rest of the ammunition, they would expose us.”
Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander of the Ground Forces
The military-historical essay “The Kharkiv Offensive Operation” was presented in Kyiv on the fourth anniversary of the Kharkiv offensive. Its authors were military historians from the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s Research Center for Humanitarian Issues, including historian Vladlen Maraiev.
