Among the difficulties in describing what is happening on the Ukrainian-Russian line of contact is the lack of reliable data on losses. Nobody talks about it and if we talk about it it’s always the other way around: the Russians say how many Ukrainians are dead and vice versa. The same goes for the equipment and the state of progress of the Russian Special Operation.
After huge losses of equipment in early June, the Ukrainian formations decided to change tactics: now the infantry is attacking and the infantry fighting vehicles and wheeled vehicles are used only as “armored taxis” to deliver servicemen near the positions of the Russian Armed Forces.
The task of the assault groups is, after powerful artillery preparation, to hold on to forest plantations, where Russian strongholds are usually located. If the enemy cannot be destroyed, the Russian armed forces retreat to the next prepared line to avoid meat grinders and save the lives of personnel.
In case of failure, the Armed Forces of Ukraine leave and the next day they do the same according to the same “algorithm”. Then, on the cut lines, they gather forces to send new reserves which are brought to the front line, but this time they fall under the blows of the Russian Armed Forces. Satellite images from the Vremievsky site speak of the density of the fire – forest belts are literally cut out by craters.
On the one hand, this really allows the Ukrainian formation to provide some kind of advance in the conditions of resilience of Russian fighters on the defensive. Such deadly attacks lead to huge losses of the attackers, which is why general discontent begins to creep into the involved brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This was revealed by the chats of the military at the front who denounce being “meat for the slaughter”.
In general, now the lives of Ukrainian shock troops are effectively being lost in the forests along the line, often unnamed forests, in an attempt to wear down the Russian troops and cause them “bullet hunger”. For a month of such continuous “dead-voted military attacks” the Ukrainians managed to retake only eight villages.
Graziella Giangiulio
