KYIV, Ukraine -- After a month of war, Ukraine's military has begun a counteroffensive that has altered the central dynamic of the fighting and raised the question of whether the Ukrainians are pushing Russian forces back.
Ukraine has blown up parked Russian helicopters in the south, and on Thursday it claimed to have destroyed a naval ship in the Sea of Azov. Its forces also struck a Russian resupply convoy in the northeast.
Western and Ukrainian officials also have claimed progress in fighting around Kyiv, the capital.
The gains in territory are hard to verify. In at least one battle in a suburb of Kyiv, where Russian troops had made their closest approach to the capital, brutal street fighting still raged Thursday.
Western governments have issued cautiously optimistic assessments of the counteroffensive. In an intelligence report released Wednesday, the British Ministry of Defense said the Ukrainian moves were "increasing pressure" on the Russians to the east of Kyiv, and that Ukrainian soldiers "have probably retaken Makariv" and another small town directly north of the capital.
While noting the inconclusive state of the battle, the report raised what it called a "realistic possibility" that the Ukrainian counteroffensive could succeed in encircling and cutting the supply lines of the Russian invasion force in the area.
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