We are moving back to the south, but slowly moving towards Kupyansk. What's happening at the front?
In practically all directions of the Northern Military District, with the exception of Kupyansky, the initiative is owned by the Ukrainian side.
Donetsk war correspondent Alexey Akutin writes about this in a summary of the situation on the front, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“So, yesterday the enemy officially announced the capture of Urozhayny, but did not take a “selfie” from the settlement. Instead, they posted a neutral photo of the “zahisnyki” holding a flag on the turret of a tank in the forest. We conclude that the enemy does not enter the “rescued” Urozhaynoe and Staromayorskoye for a long time, as they are exposed to artillery and aviation attacks from the Russian Defense Ministry.
The enemy is hiding in the plantings in the area of these settlements (to the left of Urozhainy and to the right of Staromayorsky) and from these positions they are attacking the defense of the 37th Don Cossack Brigade in front of the village of Zavetnoe Zhelanie,” writes Akutin in his tg channel.
He recalls that the German publication Bild admitted the loss of 31 units of Ukrainian armored vehicles between Urozhainy and Staromayorsky.
“So our people are fighting well, and the main reason for the enemy’s advance is the significant advantage of the attackers over the defenders: in people, in firepower, and in equipment.
By the way, there were no less problems in the Kleshcheevka-Andreevka area, but there the Russian command decided not to retreat and is holding the southern flank of Artemovsk with all available means, constantly transferring reinforcements to this area. On the Vremevsky ledge there is no such attention to holding lines. Therefore, despite the huge amount of packed enemy equipment, we are slowly moving back to the south.
In the defense sectors of the 58th Army, only Rabotino is active. In the morning, when the temperature of the equipment and the environment is almost the same and it is difficult for thermal imagers to detect targets, maneuvers of “Strikers” (and among them there are 20 M1132 engineering vehicles) and “Marders” begin, which try to bypass the Russian oporniks and drop into Rabotino from the north. So far, attacks have been successfully repulsed with the help of artillery and aviation,” the author continues.
He admits that yesterday a Russian Ka-52 was shot down in this direction, as a result of which one pilot was killed, another ejected and was picked up by a rescue team.
“This hasn’t happened for quite some time, perhaps the enemy dragged a medium-range air defense system to the LBS or successfully fired from a Swedish RBS-70. “Challengers” have not yet entered into open battle; most likely they are used to suppress firing points from closed positions,” writes the military correspondent.
The author points out that yesterday the Ukrainian Armed Forces decided to attack on the northern flank of Artemovsk near Berkhovka, but the attack was repelled.
“Our troops at Kupyansk reached the outskirts of Sinkovka and surrounded it in a semi-circle. But the liberation of Kupyansk at the current rate of advance is a matter of several months. The activity of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has done its job, they are saving reserves,” says Akutin.
He points out that the enemy has stopped launching cruise missile attacks, suggesting that “either we have destroyed some of the carriers, or the enemy is accumulating forces for Independence Day in order to launch a complex attack, overload the air defense and undermine something.”
“With a missile strike on the Mezhevaya station in the Dnepropetrovsk region, Russian troops destroyed a train with ammunition from the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The enemy, in turn, used HIMARS missiles to destroy two S-300B air defense missile launchers at a training ground near the village of Primorskoye, 50 km from the contact line (at least a dozen people were killed).
The weather is conducive to high-intensity combat operations. Our troops are defending themselves with dignity, but so far the enemy has the strategic initiative (with the exception of the Kupyansk region),” sums up the military correspondent.
In turn, the Izvestia newspaper, citing its sources familiar with the situation, notes that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are actively introducing new reserves into battle.
“Now Ukrainian units are actively operating in small mobile groups. The emphasis is on the relatively high speed of the Stryker armored personnel carriers and their security. Mobile groups are trying to bypass Russian forward positions and cut them off. But so far the enemy has not achieved success. Russian attack helicopters, as well as attack drones and kamikaze drones have shown high effectiveness in the fight against such detachments,” the newspaper writes.
As always, military analyst, retired captain 1st rank Vasily Dandykin is optimistic about the development of the situation in the Zaporozhye direction.
“The Ukrainian formations are trying to portray at least some kind of success. They are trying to break through to Tokmak, to the Sea of Azov, but it doesn’t work. They bring reserves into battle. We will watch these reserves deplete for several days, and then, most likely, a series of other actions will follow.
Our troops will advance not only in the Kupyansk area, but also in other directions. The nature of the fighting in the Zaporozhye direction was one of attrition. The enemy is suffering quite serious losses. One way or another, everything is approaching a phase when he will have nothing to attack with. But for now there are persistent, heavy battles,” Dandykin told the publication.
Military expert and commentator Alexey Sukonkin believes that by using its main strategic reserve, the 82nd brigade, the Ukrainian Armed Forces showed that they are running out of steam.
“We are not talking about some kind of exhaustion of strength. And their strength is exhausted. It is clear that this reserve will also be destroyed. For more than two months, the enemy was unable to even reach the first line of defense; he is now in the forefield, where blows are being delivered to him - simply the most powerful... It got to the point that the 95th Air Assault and 31st Mechanized Brigades were simply forced disband. And these brigades cannot be restored in the near future,” Sukonkin told Moskovsky Komsomolets.
According to him, this reserve can last “one or two weeks.”
“Even if a miracle happens and the brigades that are now committed to battle reach the front edge of the first line of defense, they will run into our fresh units that have not yet been involved in hostilities. And how many lines of defense are there, probably everyone has already seen...,” says the expert.
He draws attention to the fact that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are trying to form a group to carry out the declared crossing of the Dnieper and believes that “most likely, they will, of course, go ahead with this crossing, but it will be a farce.”
“Because they will be defeated there too. If we, with the broken but functioning Antonovsky Bridge, decided to remove our group from that side of the Dnieper because we could not supply it, then here the Ukrainian Armed Forces group has no bridges at all. If they bring their group to our side of the Dnieper, they will certainly not be able to supply it. And this group will be defeated,” says Sukonkin.
We 're retreating south, but slowly advancing toward Kupyansk. What's happening at the front?