Before the counteroffensive in the east, which forced the Russians to flee when the Ukrainians took control of the key cities of the Kharkiv front, a large-scale operation to mislead the Russian forces was allegedly carried out.

“It was a major disinformation operation,” Taras Berezovets, a former national security adviser turned press officer for the Ukrainian Bohun Special Forces Brigade, told The Guardian.

“Russia thought that it would be in the south and transferred its equipment. Then, instead of noon, the attack went where they least expected it, and that made them panic and run,” he added.

On August 29, the Southern Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine announced the start of the long-awaited offensive in the Kherson region, but the successes were not significant.

The spokesperson of the Southern Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces insisted on a “regime of silence” and temporarily forbade journalists from visiting the front line in Kherson.

Berezovets claims that the “hype” in the media surrounding the offensive in the south was the backbone of a coordinated campaign against Russian troops that had been building for several months. “He managed to provoke Russia to transfer equipment and personnel to the southern front, including some from the Kharkiv region,” Berezovets said.

A Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region is straining Russian forces and causing the collapse of the Russian axis in northern Donbass, according to the latest assessment by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), published on Sunday morning.

Russian forces have previously weakened their northern axis in Donbas by redeploying units from the area to southern Ukraine, complicating efforts to slow Ukraine’s advance or at least deploy a cover force for the withdrawal. Ukrainian offensives are not limited to the Izyum region; Ukrainian forces captured Velikiy Burluk on Saturday, which would put Ukrainian forces 15 kilometers from the Russian border.

In the past five days since September 6, Ukrainian forces have penetrated Russian lines up to 70 kilometers deep and captured more than 3,000 square kilometers of territory – more territory than Russian forces have captured in all operations since April.

The liberation of Izyum would become the most important Ukrainian military achievement after the victory in the March battle near Kyiv.

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