section_path: History/Ukrainian counteroffensives and stalemate (2022–2023)
section_name: Ukrainian counteroffensives and stalemate (2022–2023)
paragraph_text: Ukrainian counteroffensives and stalemate (2022–2023)
  
  Ukrainian forces launched counteroffensives in the south in August 2022, and in the northeast in September 2022. On 30 September, Russia annexed four oblasts of Ukraine which it had partially conquered during the invasion. This annexation was generally unrecognized and condemned by the countries of the world. After Putin announced that he would begin conscription drawn from the 300,000 citizens with military training and potentially the pool of about 25 million Russians who could be eligible for conscription, one-way tickets out of the country nearly or completely sold out. The Ukrainian offensive in the northeast successfully recaptured the majority of Kharkiv Oblast in September. In the course of the southern counteroffensive, Ukraine retook the city of Kherson in November and Russian forces withdrew to the east bank of the Dnieper River.
  
  As of August 2023, the total number of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers killed or wounded during the Russian invasion of Ukraine was nearly 500,000. In November 2023, the UN said that more than 10,000 civilians had been killed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with about half the deaths in the three months prior to the report taking place far behind the front lines. The UN attributed the deaths far behind the front to Russian use of long-range missiles and explosions of abandoned ordinance. According to a declassified US intelligence assessment, as of December 2023, Russia had lost 315,000 of the 360,000 troops that made up Russia's pre-invasion ground force, and 2,200 of the 3,500 tanks.