Ukraine's strategy for rapid military advances in recent days began to take shape a few months ago during a series of consultations between Ukrainian and US officials.. The New York Times writes about this, citing the words of American officials..

The counter-offensive, the forms and possibility of which were discussed and revised more than once in the summer during the consultation process, became successful, and at the same time exceeded even most expectations.. Ukrainian troops have seized the initiative and seem ready to take advantage of their progress in the northeast of the country and another campaign in the south.

The work began shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told his generals that he wanted to take a significant step to demonstrate that his country could fight back against a Russian invasion.. Under his decree, the Ukrainian military developed a plan for a broad offensive in the south to recapture Kherson and cut off Mariupol from Russian forces in the east..

Ukrainian generals and US officials reasoned that such a large-scale attack would lead to huge losses and would not allow large areas to be quickly returned.. Ukrainians by that time daily suffered hundreds of losses in tough hostilities.. Russian troops suffered the same losses, but still slowly moved forward, devastating Ukrainian cities in the east of Donbass..

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The Ukrainian military command, which for a long time did not want to share the details of its plans, began to open them more and more to representatives of the American and British intelligence services and consult with them..

Jake Sullivan, national security adviser, and Andriy Yermak, Zelenskiy's chief adviser, have spoken repeatedly about planning a counteroffensive, officials say.. General Mark Milley, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Ukrainian military leadership regularly discussed intelligence cooperation and military support.. The British military also joined the discussion of plans..

Time was of the essence, according to U.S. officials, because for an effective counterattack to be launched before the onset of cold weather, a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin could use gas blackmail against Europe.

This account of the preparations for the counteroffensive is based on interviews with several US officials and others who were aware of the secret negotiations between Washington and Kyiv, and who helped the Ukrainian command to carry out the counteroffensive.. Most of them, due to the secret nature of the consultations, spoke on condition of anonymity..

U.S. officials prefer not to evaluate the results of the counteroffensive for the time being, waiting for developments.. While the advantage is on the side of Kyiv.

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One of the highlights of the preparations was a joint military exercise between the Ukrainian and US military, the purpose of which was to test the success of a potential large-scale counter-offensive in southern Ukraine.. The exercise, previously reported by CNN, showed that the intended offensive will fail.. With these results and assessments, the Ukrainian military returned to the Commander-in-Chief.

In the exercise, which was supposed to help the Ukrainian forces to model the situation and understand what forces they would need to muster in order to succeed in different scenarios, it became clear that certain areas of the counter-offensive were likely to be more successful than others.. Colin Cole, deputy head of the Pentagon, spoke about this by phone..

“We gave advice, and the Ukrainians heard them and made their own decision,” he said..

The stakes were high. Ukraine needed to demonstrate that this war would not be another frozen conflict and that it could reclaim territories both to boost Ukrainian morale and bolster Western support..

During August, at the request of Ukraine, U.S. officials stepped up intelligence sharing about Russian troop positions, highlighting their weaknesses.. Intelligence also showed that even if the plans of the Ukrainians become known to the Kremlin, it will be difficult for him to quickly replenish and strengthen his army in the north-east of Ukraine or transfer troops from the south..

“We saw that the Russians actually redeployed most of their trained forces to the south, preparing for another counter-offensive that the Ukrainians launched.. Therefore, we had reason to believe that due to the weak morale and pressure from the Ukrainians, some sections of the Russian army are rather unstable, ”Kol said..

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Instead of one big offensive, the Ukrainian military proposed two. The first, in the Kherson direction, would require several days or weeks to achieve visible results.. The second was planned in the Kharkov direction.

Together with Britain and the United States, Ukraine assessed the new plan, once again conducting analysis and modeling the situation. This time the officials of the three countries agreed that it would work..

However, this plan, according to a general staff officer in Kyiv, depended entirely on the volume and pace of additional military assistance to the United States..

By that time, Ukraine had already used up most of its old Soviet stocks of weapons, and learning how to handle new types of them in the midst of a war is not an easy task.. However, this risky step turned out to be successful.. To ensure the offensive, Kyiv received more than 800 thousand shells for 155-millimeter artillery as assistance.. The United States alone has provided more than $14.5 billion in military aid since the start of the war in February..

According to the Ukrainian officer, before the counteroffensive, the Ukrainian Armed Forces provided the United States with a detailed list of weapons necessary for the successful implementation of the plan..

Specialized weapons like the highly mobile HIMARS artillery rocket systems have had a significant effect on the battlefield.. Each satellite-guided missile contains a warhead with more than 90 kg of explosives. In recent weeks, Ukrainian forces have used them to destroy more than 400 Russian weapons depots, command posts and other targets..

Recently, Ukrainian troops supplied Soviet-designed MiG-29 fighters with HARM air-launched missiles provided by the United States, so far not a single aircraft has done this.. Thus, the Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed Russian radars especially effectively..

“We are seeing real and measurable results from the use of these systems by Ukraine,” General Milli said last week at the Ramstein base in Germany at a meeting of 50 countries providing military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine..

Ukrainian and U.S. officials said the Pentagon's announcement of new arms and ammunition deliveries on a weekly or bi-weekly basis gave Ukrainian leadership confidence in planning a comprehensive offensive..

“The importance of Western military support lies not only in specific weapons systems, but also in guarantees - Ukrainians can confidently plan their future actions,” said Jack Watling, a senior fellow at the Royal Joint Forces Institute in London, who recently returned from Ukraine.

As Ukrainian soldiers advanced into areas in the northeast this weekend, the Russian army literally fell apart.. In some areas near Kharkov, Russian troops simply fled the battlefield, leaving equipment and ammunition behind..

The attack on Kherson is also not empty words, or simple intimidation.. This is what forced Moscow to postpone indefinitely the planned pseudo-referendum on the accession of part of the Kherson region to Russia.

However, as expected, the counteroffensive in the Kherson direction is moving more slowly, given the significantly larger, compared to Kharkov, the number of Russian forces..

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Finally, Ukrainian officials believe that further progress is needed to achieve long-term success, in particular, the return to control of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, cutting off Russian forces in Mariupol and forcing them in Kherson to the other side of the Dnieper.

Russia is currently weakened, its military leadership has demonstrated incompetence and lack of reliable intelligence. Command and logistics on many fronts have been decimated, so Moscow is currently having trouble supplying its troops, giving Ukraine an opportunity to build on gains in the coming weeks, U.S. military officials say.

While Ukraine has the opportunity to retake more of its territory in the east, however, US and Ukrainian officials believe that the most important direction today is the south..

“Probably the next targets are Kherson and Zaporozhye. We will see further UAF steps towards achieving a breakthrough there in the near future,” predicts Michael Kofman, director of Russian studies at the CNA Defense Research Institute..

The plan, which began to be discussed in mid-summer, relied heavily on US intelligence and high-tech weapons.. However, U.S. officials insist the credit for the successful offensive is entirely due to President Zelenskiy and the Ukrainian military, who led a relatively small force near Kharkiv to a significant victory..

" However, this achievement demonstrates to the world that the Ukrainians are really capable of conducting complex offensive operations, ”concluded Colin Kohl..