June 8 - Day 470 - Kakhovka emotions, Not the Offensive, Living next to Wagner
Hi FB!
The destruction of the Kakhovka dam, its hydroelectric station, and the flooding and displacement of tens of thousands of people is, rightfully, the most high-profile news event of the last few days.
News coverage on that has been absolutely wall-to-wall, and that was before Zelensky went there (today) so not much need for me to weigh in on who did it, how much suffering, what’s this about water flow, is the river level going up or down, and so on. Tons of facts and information, whatever you want.
I think the only thing I can do about Kakhovka, review-wise, is to post some relevant pictures that appeal to emotions, so, this starts out with three animals-being-evacuated images, and then two shots of the Russians shelling Kherson, today, plus a widely-forwarded shot of UN cars in Ukraine defaced by Ukrainians angry the cars are in a parking lot somewhere and not helping save people in the flood plain. There are more than a few people reading this who see that as unfair, but the point is, war isn’t fair to anyone, and that includes the outsiders.
See the shot with the motor boat? In the view of some Russian gunner on the other side of the river, if someone puts a boat in the water following probably the worst man-made natural disaster in Europe since Chernobyl, you know, to deal with the flood, well, that’s a military target worth firing on. I read that nine people, all civilians, were injured in that strike. But of course this is war, so also attached, is a pic of fires from Ukrainian fire from the Kherson side, on Monday.
For those of you who speak Russian, and want more along that line, here are links to some social media posts from a Ukrainian woman with relatives on the Russian side of the flood zone. Women, children, cancer patients, three days on the roof of a house, no response from authorities, bodies floating by. If you want to see what this flood is doing to people, on a personal level, here are the links, but it’s not pleasant:
https://t.me/astrapress/29103?single
https://t.me/astrapress/29104?single
https://t.me/astrapress/29105?single
As to the military implications I’m now even more inclined to anticipate General Zaluzhny will attempt some kind of cross-river operation, because the Russian shore defenses have been washed away and his alternative is hitting the Russian defenses around Zaporizhia head on.
Yet again, there are reports that the Ukrainian sneaky-deaky special ops infantry is squishing and zodiac-surfing in the river delta, and even the Russian “governor” Vladimir Sal’do said on yesterday that the Russian artillery is taking shot at them. Perhaps this explains today the Russian artillery attack against people doing evacuation work in motor boats next to Kherson. But as interesting as the amphibious angle is, I have no proof.
Here’s some text on what the dam destruction means from a tactical/operational POV, but the bottom line here is I certainly don’t have a definitive answer.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/17998
The offensive
It seems like the Ukrainians are pretty much on schedule. As we guessed, on Monday the Ukrainians seem clearly to have launched a few probe/recons by fire in the Donbass sector, and we can now say with some confidence that the battle around the village Novodonetske we were hearing about on Monday, involved 37 Marine Brigade on the Ukrainian side. Something close to a company, maybe 20–25 combat vehicles.
They grabbed part of the village and seem to have taken some losses. According to Russian Telegram channels the Ukrainians were crucified, shot to bits, eliminated and wiped out. For a while there were reports the Russians had destroyed some Leopard tanks, but that turned out to be some AMX-10s the Russians photographed with a drone. Image. It seems like what happened more or less is the Marines advanced, hit a defensive line with mines, fought their way through it, took losses, and now they’re digging in their half of the village.
There are scary vids out there of close to a dozen Marine vehicles “destroyed” and even a Marine company “refusing to fight”, but, this is all from the Russian side and so not to be trusted at all without outside corroboration. But for sure, there was no breakthrough at Novodonetske.
On Tuesday, what appears to have been a similar-sized Ukrainian “attack” was made near Vuhledar, with similar results: the Ukrainians drove forward, they drew fire, they fired themselves for a while, and then they went back. Also the Ukrainians made what in retrospect seems to have been a recon by fire with the goal of grabbing a woodline a little closer to Donetsk, near Opytne. My guess is the Ukrainians took a woodline and some losses. Hopefully FB won’t suppress this link:
Today, or more exactly this morning, it appears the Ukrainians did much the same thing, just not one tank/apc column but four, all basically in a 20 km-wide sector of the Zaporizhia front, and very obviously against Russian defenses of the road from Orikhiv to Tokmak (and further Melitopol). Started at one in the morning. Tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, but it’s not clear what types (yet). Two maps attached, together they’re probably as good as any other estimate out here I think.
More detailed view, where the Ukrainian attacks were on Thursday
I can say for sure at this point is, the Russian internet just went ballistic. First it was Ukrainian armored columns getting wiped out, then it was the Russian air force making precision strikes at night, then it was scads of Ukrainian infantry getting cut to pieces in wood lines, all accompanied by mass destruction of Ukrainian vehicles on minefields, mass employment of Russian anti-tank missiles, and of course waves of Ukrainians getting cut down to be replaced with new waves of Ukrainians.
The main development is, that that Russian narrative — and this is the military bloggers, not the Russian state media per se — definitely shifted over time, and pretty durn fast. If in the early morning the Ukrainians were wiped out and the Russians had won a decisive defensive victory, then by mid-morning it was “battle mostly won but those Ukrainians are still attacking” and by afternoon it was “We’re winning but the Ukrainians are still coming and they have a lot of artillery, and if we’re honest our guys are getting hit too.”
By the end of the day they were saying “Well, we probably fought the Ukrainians off, but we’re not sure yet”. Meanwhile the Ukrainians ended a pretty long radio silence and announced it was local attacks designed to gain better terrain and set up the future big offensive. Which is what I would say if I was very clever and had an attack plan and it was going great, but also, what I would say if I had a series of company-to-battalion sized attacks that I was hoping would bite into the Russian defenses, but they didn’t, and all manner of irritating journalists are demanding some kind of explanation about what all the shooting was about.
It appears, similar to Novodonetske on Monday, the Ukrainians on Thursday managed to take a line of positions around the village Lobkove, which the Russians, like on Monday, said that was part of the plan, that was a forward observation position, not part of the main battle line.
For the pessimists, there is a fair amount of evidence that the Ukrainians got a solid bloody nose. For the optimists, recon by fire is necessary and the last day of fighting has generated all manner of targets which will now get hit with precision fire very soon.
There is a lot of unconfirmed data out there about the fighting: (1) The Ukrainians are using HIMARS against infantry positions (2) Leopards (again) were spotted somewhere (3) Leopards (again) were damaged or destroyed by clever Russian defenses (4) Ukrainian tanks are driving up, emptying their basic loads towards Russian positions, and driving back for reloads (5) Ukrainian artillery fire is pretty much constant in the attack sectors. The reports of Bradleys and Leopards had mostly disappeared, to be replaced with reports of the Ukrainians operating T-72, MaxxPro, and BMPs.
Per DiscordLeaks this is all equipment in 32nd Mechanized Brigade. But, per video published by the Russian state Zvezda agency, who said they got it from the Russian Ministry of Defense, two of the Ukrainian tanks looked not too different from a Leopard, video.
If you'd like a conventional news story on all that, go here:
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/18027
If you want the executive summary, I think the moral of the story here is it sucks to be the scouts going out to draw the fire, of course, but it’s not like that’s new.
Bakhmut
It’s now pretty confirmed that, as reported on Monday, the Ukrainians did move forwards to the north of Bakhmut, with the main attackers being 3rd Assault and 10th Mountain. The fighting appears to have been assaulting and clearing woodlines, and in the 3rd Assault’s case, there is now video out there showing them popping smoke and laying into the woodline with tanks or vehicle-mounted machine guns, before the infantry hops out and starts winkling, just like NATO doctrine.
All reports are pretty consistent that in about 48 hours the Ukrainians advanced about 1.2 km. across a km. front which, in that territory, amounts to several farm fields. All of this is in the vicinity of Klishchevka, to the north of Bakhmut. Also attached: A recent vid of two 3rd Assault tanks doing wingman tactics just like in the tank shooter computer games. Pls note the smoke video is a little older, published at the end of May.
Behind Russian Lines
At these links
https://t.me/Pravda_Gerashchenko/72943
https://t.me/MaksymZhorin/4477
are recordings (some repeat here, sorry) of a commander of Russia's 72nd Motor Rifle Brigade which, for those of you who have been following the Bakhmut battle, has repeatedly found itself on the short end of fighting against the Kyiv/Azov guys in the 3rd and the Carpathian guys from the 10th. According to this captured Lieutenant Colonel (!), if you are in the Russian army and working alongside Wagner, there are problems.
He says Wagner troops kidnapped his soldiers and held them ransom for ammo and supplies, stole in the sense "took it at gun point" tanks and artillery from his brigade, jacked all manner of light vehicles, and physically attacked soldiers from the 72nd repeatedly. This behavior, he says, is a big reason for the poor combat performance of his brigade. He said he plans to write a book.
If you've read this far, first a link to a video produced by 10th Mountain, my read is their their videographer guy had some extra time on his hands because the infantry is busy fighting, and proably the brigadier ordered no video from made public from recent ops. So creative editing.
https://t.me/operativnoZSU/99912
And I would be remiss if I didn't offer up the video of the fish jumping into the BMP hatch.