From his hospital bed, the Ukrainian commander describes the creeping recapture of the Kharkiv region by troops

Captain Andriy Malakhov and his men crept forward through the forests south of the town of Balakliya. They knew that just ahead was the enemy’s first line of defense in the Kharkiv region, a network of trenches and fortifications that they had heard the Russians refer to as “Moscow” or “Moscow” in intercepted walkie-talkie talk.

Captain Malakhov and the 30 troops following him also realized they were outnumbered by the 100 or so Russian soldiers guarding the line, which also had dug-in tanks and artillery. But at dawn on September 7, he and his battalion – a special operations unit known as Wild Steppe that reports directly to General Valery Zaluzhny, the head of Ukraine’s armed forces – attacked anyway.

The goal was not to overwhelm the enemy. It was a distraction – and it worked.

As Russian troops defending Balakliya redeployed south to reinforce Moscow, the main Ukrainian attack, which had begun its advance a day earlier, smashed through the thin Russian lines north of the city.

“They thought we were the biggest threat, but it was only our battalion,” Capt. Malakhov said in an interview with The Globe and Mail at a hospital in Kharkiv, where he is recovering from injuries sustained in the battles.

With the Ukrainian military barring media from the newly liberated areas, Captain Malakhov’s eyewitness account is one of the first to emerge of a counteroffensive that has seen Ukraine recapture more than 3,000 square kilometers of territory, reshaping the six-month-old war here .

By the end of September 7, Balakliya – a town of 20,000 that had been under Russian control since March – was back in Ukrainian hands. And the Wild Steppe Battalion had crossed the strategically important Siverskiy Donets River and shelled Russian troops as they staged a chaotic retreat.

The fall of Balakliya triggered a wider collapse of the Russian front line, allowing Ukrainian troops to capture the strategic railway junction of Kupyansk as well as the city of Izyum, which had been the center of Russian military operations in the region. By Monday, Ukrainian troops were in control of almost the entire Kharkiv region.

Russia retaliated for the second day in a row by striking civilian infrastructure in Kharkiv and other cities. Much of Kharkiv was blacked out on Monday — power was briefly restored after a Sunday missile attack on the city’s power grid — and Mayor Ihor Terehov wrote on his Telegram channel that Russian forces had also targeted the water supply to Ukraine’s second-largest city, which had a pre-war population of 1.4 million.

Captain Malakhov credited General Zaluzhny, whom he has known for years, with the bait-and-switch tactic. He said the top general appeared to have convinced President Volodymyr Zelensky that a counter-attack had a better chance of success in the forests and swamps of Kharkiv – where special operations units can have an overall impact – rather than on the open plains of Kherson. where Russia’s artillery advantage would be difficult to overcome.

The Kharkiv counteroffensive, which appears to have caught Russian forces almost completely off guard, was more than a month in the making.

The Wild Steppe Battalion had been fighting in the Kherson region until early August, when they were redeployed to Kharkiv on the direct orders of General Zaluzhny. On August 6, they began laying the groundwork for what was to come with an attack on the village of Bairak, just south of Balakliya. They failed to take Bairak, but left behind several undercover saboteurs who waited until the September offensive was under way to blow up a bridge in the village and destroy an important Russian supply line.

After the Bairak skirmish – in which, Captain Malakhov said, both sides suffered significant casualties – the Ukrainians waited and built up their presence in the region while Russia continued to move forces south from Kharkiv to bolster the Kherson front.

Finally, last Wednesday morning, the real counterattack began. First, the Russian troops – members of the 150th Rifle Division, as well as marines from the 1st Baltic Fleet – put up a fierce defense of the Moscow line. Then, probably realizing they were being outflanked, they suddenly retreated.

By the time the Wild Steppe warriors – all veterans of the eight-year war in the Donbas region that preceded Russia’s full-scale invasion this year – reached Moscow, it was deserted. The Russians had retreated in an orderly fashion, taking their dead and wounded with them. This was not the case when the Ukrainians overtook the second line of trenches, which the Russians had nicknamed “Peter” after St. Petersburg.

“When we started to come forward properly, they started leaving their bodies behind,” said Captain Malakhov, calling one of his men into his hospital room to show The Globe photos of dead Russian soldiers he had taken with his iPhone.

Realizing the precariousness of their position, the Russians began to flee in different directions. Some stuck with their units and fought as they retreated southeast toward the neighboring Luhansk region. Others abandoned their equipment, took off their uniforms and donned civilian clothes in an attempt to evade capture, Captain Malakhov said.

His iPhone has pictures of armored vehicles, ammunition and uniforms left behind by fleeing Russian forces, as well as a video of his men taking down the red Soviet banner of the 150th Rifle Division from the village of Nova Husarivka. They later raised the blue-yellow Ukrainian flag, a moment that brought joy to Captain Malakhov and his men.

A few of the fleeing Russians dove into the nearby Siverskiy Donets and tried to swim to safety. The Wild Steppe warriors crossed the river in rubber boats and pursued them to a nearby Young Pioneers camp – a holdover from the days when both Ukraine and Russia were part of the Soviet Union – where the Russians used a base.

A fierce firefight ensued, with Captain Malakhov hit three times by machine gun fire. Two bullets tore through his left leg, another struck his hip.

He fell, unable to continue, but his unit advanced and is still part of the ongoing counteroffensive, which on Monday continued to liberate towns and villages in the Kharkiv region. Despite his injury, Captain Malakhov, a 46-year-old father of two, said he takes pride in leading his men from the front.

“If you ask about motivation, [Russian] commanders never go to the front line. … If I lead the charge, my men will follow me,” he said in obvious discomfort a day after surgery to remove the bullet from his hip.

Lieutenant Taras Berezovets, a press officer for another Ukrainian special operations unit that took part in the offensive, confirmed that the Wild Steppe fighters had liberated three villages – and that Captain Malakhov, whose nom de guerre is “Tuman” or “fog”, had himself led the assault.

“He led the attacks at least twice,” said Lieutenant Berezovets. “He was the first to jump into the trenches – and he was wounded the next day after he took control of the fortified position of Moscow. … Tuman will get a nomination for the Hero of Ukraine.”

The fact that a top commander had to wait five days for an operation – “I had to wait until they could find a table to operate on” – speaks to the number of Ukrainian troops wounded in the counteroffensive to liberate the Kharkiv region. But Capt. Malakhov said morale remains high, a key difference between his men and the Russians who fled their posts.

“Your guys were scared. Our guys have nothing to fear. When we have someone wounded or killed in action, we continue our attack. This is our country. Our people are ready to die for it.”

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