No one is saying for certain that the long-awaited Ukrainian counter-offensive has begun but it certainly looks that way. There has been an increase in offensive action at several points along the front.

Ukrainian troops carried out “offensive actions” in multiple locations on the eastern front, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar wrote on Telegram, despite “stiff resistance and the enemy’s attempts to hold the occupied lines and positions.”

Ukraine’s forces advanced between 200 and 1,600 meters in the Donetsk region, near the town of Orikhovo-Vasylivka. Troops also advanced the same distance in Paraskoviivka, north of Bakhmut, and pushed between 100 and 700 meters in Ivanivske, also near Bakhmut, Maliar said.

Russian military bloggers have confirmed the attacks have had some success but aren’t in a panic.

Mikhail Zvinchuk, who writes under the pseudonym Rybar and has more than a million followers on the Telegram messaging app, was one of several bloggers who described intense fighting near the village of Novodonetske in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region. On Monday evening, he said Ukrainian soldiers in German-made Leopard 2 tanks had seized control of the village, which is near the town of Velyka Novosilka…

Igor Girkin, a former paramilitary commander who uses the nom de guerre Igor Strelkov on Telegram, said Russia’s forces have been preparing for an impending Ukrainian counterattack — unlike last year, he wrote, when they created “ideal conditions” for Kyiv’s forces to advance in the Kharkiv region.

But he warned that a significant breakthrough by Ukrainian forces in the area of Novodonetske would give Kyiv an opening to drive a wedge between Donetsk and Mariupol in southern Ukraine — cutting off communications between the two critical Russian-held cities.

So is this the start of the counteroffensive? Probably so as this Sunday was within a timeframe Ukraine gave the US for when the attack might start. But that doesn’t mean a headlong rush into enemy lines. In fact, it should start with some probing of enemy strength in various places, something the Americans call “reconnaissance by force.”

Ukraine has long said it will make no formal announcement about the start of its counteroffensive, and this weekend the Ukrainian military released a video on the Telegram messaging app renewing its plea for operational silence about the expected counteroffensive, with the slogan, “Plans love silence.”…

U.S. military analysts also said they believed that Ukrainian units were making an initial push to determine the positions and strength of Russia’s forces — a traditional tactic that Americans had been training Ukrainian forces to use. An American official said this testing for potential weaknesses in Russian defenses, manpower and morale — what the U.S. military calls “reconnaissance by force” — would most likely continue for several days. If successful, the official said, the main thrust of the Ukrainian counteroffensive would become more evident during that time.

An unnamed Ukrainian officer confirmed this to the Washington Post:

An officer in a Ukrainian assault brigade in the southeast region told The Washington Post the counteroffensive has begun and his unit is ready to join. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to provide details. A unit near his pushed ahead yesterday, he said, and destroyed eight Russian tanks. For now, he said, Ukraine is focused on reconnaissance operations, “but the pace will increase every day.”

“The Armed Forces of Ukraine are now shaking the enemy’s defenses along the entire front, conducting combat reconnaissance, looking for weak points,” the officer said. “At the same time, rocket artillery units are destroying warehouses, Russian military command bodies, and logistics chains.”

One person who already expects the Russian defense to go poorly is Wagner group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin. The Wagner group has largely pulled out of the Bakhmut area and he’s predicting the Russian army will lose the territory in 4-6 weeks unless something changes.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, having withdrawn Wagner PMC from Bakhmut, now predicts the Russian army will lose the ruined city in one to 1.5 months maximum. There are already reports of Russian soldiers retreating from positions which Wagner transferred to the army. pic.twitter.com/ucqlnSUTkI

— Igor Sushko (@igorsushko) June 5, 2023

Finally, the attacks on the Russian border region of Belgorod have continued to the point that thousands of residents are being evacuated.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Monday its forces had stopped an attempt by “Ukrainian terrorists” on Sunday to enter Novaya Tavolzhanka via the nearby Seversky Donets River, which crosses into Russia from Ukraine. The ministry said Russia had 10 of the attackers.

But Russian authorities could not enter Novoya Tavolzhanka, Gladkov said Monday night on social media. That appeared to confirm claims by the militias that they were in control of the settlement — and that Russia’s border security measures were insufficient for the second time in two weeks.

The Russian ranks appeared to be in disarray.

Some pro-war Russian bloggers dubbed the area the “Belgorod front line,” underscoring the blowback of Moscow’s stalling invasion of Ukraine, with active fighting underway on Russian soil.

All of this has remained off of Russian state television of course. Putin can’t afford to admit to any more failures.