In 19 months of hard fighting, the Ukrainians have become adept at assaulting, clearing and holding Russian trenches. Their tactics prioritize speed and aggression.
If Ukrainian troops are going to reach the coast and sever the overland supply lines into Russian-occupied Crimea, they might do so here, on the road to Melitopol.
The deployment is good and bad news for Kyiv’s counteroffensive, which kicked off with coordinated assaults across southern and eastern Ukraine starting on June 4.