Ukrainian troops have retaken lost ground in the northern Sumy region and elsewhere, but successful counter-attacks by Kyiv’s forces have been limited in scope over the past three days, news reports and unit statements said.

Ukrainian assault units operating in the northern Sumy region and southern Zaporizhzhia region have scored small but verified successes fighting outnumbered against Russian forces, bucking a trend of relentless Russian pressure and bloody but slow Russian advances prevalent elsewhere on the front.

The reports of local Ukrainian successes came against the background of a substantial Russian penetration of Ukrainian lines in the eastern Pokrovsk sector, in and around the village Dobropillia. Russian infantry using infiltration tactics, by Tuesday, had pushed between 10-17 kilometers (6-11 miles) into Ukrainian positions, although as of Tuesday, reports were conflicting as to the size of the Russian force and Ukrainian defenses’ ability to contain it.

In the northern Sumy region, statements and content published by Ukraine’s 71st Air Assault Jaeger Brigade confirmed Ukrainian troops recaptured the village of Bezsalivka, a border hamlet adjacent to Russia’s Belgorod region, in combat on Sunday. The 71st is a light infantry formation raised shortly after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Russian forces were ejected from Dezsalivka and retreated back into Russian Federation territory after having been hit with artillery, drone strikes, and then infantry teams rooting out Russian fortifications. Ukrainian milbloggers said two assault infantry battalions – the 24th and the 33rd – led  ground assaults and mopping up work. A Ukraine army statement claimed 18 Russian soldiers died in the action.

Spokesmen for the area headquarters Joint Forces Dnipro on Wednesday said battles were still in progress around Dobropillia and that Russian attacks were heavy across the Pokrovsk sector. The official Ukrainian army statement claimed all Russian attacks were repelled but did not mention any ground recovered.

In the southern Zaporizhzhia sector, Ukrainian official and independent sources widely confirmed a successful counterattack by a Ukrainian assault infantry regiment that ejected Russian assault groups from a village called Stepanohirsk.

According to video and unit statements from the defending formation, 210th Assault Infantry Regiment, in a day-long battle, cleared Russian troops digging in the village. The independent military information platform DeepState reported Stepanohirsk cleared of Russian forces by mid-afternoon on Tuesday.

Supported by strike drone and artillery units in sector, the 210th Regiment’s 1st Battalion led the counterattack against elements of a parachute infantry brigade, most reports said.

The action, fought in the south of Stepanohisk village, began after sunset on Monday, reports said, when small groups of Russian infantry were spotted pushing into the village outskirts and seen to be digging in.

The risky but sometimes effective Russian tactic of trying to gain ground by infiltrating men on foot into Ukrainian positions has seen increasingly wide use across the fighting front. In the early years of the war, both sides commonly attacked using tanks, infantry fighting vehicles backed with artillery. Since mid-2023 those assault tactics have increasingly become obsolete because armored columns driving out into the open are inevitably spotted from the air and then swarmed with first-person-view FPV drones.

Geo-located video published by 210 Regiment showed drones hunting down individual Russian soldiers. In some engagements reviewed by Kyiv Post, the kamikaze aircraft followed retreating troops into basements and bunkers before detonating.

A Tuesday press statement published by the unit said attack tactics were systematic: “Each assault is a carefully planned operation. Before assault infantry attacks a (Russian) position, it is worked over by artillery and drones…the enemy tried to infiltrate and accumulate troops inside built-up areas, in city buildings in small groups, but they were observed and ruthlessly destroyed.”

The statement claimed Ukrainian forces cleared Stepanohirsk village without friendly casualties.

Another local Ukrainian counterattack reportedly was in progress on Wednesday, with unit and independent sources reporting elements of Ukraine’s 3rd Corps had kicked off counterassaults against Russian positions in the vicinity of the town of Lyman, in the eastern sector of the fighting front, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.