WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
'The Russians were waiting for us': Ukraine troops describe tougher fight than expected
They rode into a kill zone. The timing was off. Many men were lost. In the end, they recaptured the ruined village of Staromaiorske, claiming Ukraine's biggest advance for weeks.
Troops at the spearhead of Ukraine's counteroffensive say a battle last week along the front in the southeast proved to be tougher and bloodier than expected, with plans going awry and an enemy that was well-prepared.
"The Russians were waiting for us," said a 29-year-old soldier using the call-sign Bulat, from a unit sent into battle in armoured vehicles during last week's assault.
"They fired anti-tank weapons and grenade launchers at us. My vehicle drove over an anti-tank mine, but everything was ok, the vehicle took the hit, and everyone was alive. We dismounted and ran towards the cover. Because the most important is to find cover and then move on.”
Tales of the battle of Staromaiorske, recounted to Reuters near the frontline in southeastern Ukraine, give an indication of why Kyiv's boldest counteroffensive of the war, soon entering its third month, has proven a slower and bloodier slog than anticipated.
"Our mission was planned to take two days. But we couldn’t drive in during the darkness at the right time, for a few reasons. So we drove in later and lost the right moment," said Bulat.
Kyiv, which has received billions of dollars worth of equipment and training from Western countries to mount its counteroffensive to recapture occupied territory this summer, has acknowledged that its campaign is unfolding more slowly than expected. Commanders say the deliberate pace is needed to avoid high casualties.
The Russians have had months to prepare their fortifications and sow minefields. The Ukrainian attackers lack the air superiority that their NATO allies normally expect in their training drills.
The Russian defenders had set up "pre-sighted zones" in anticipation of the attack, said a 24-year-old Ukrainian marine with the call-sign "Dub".
"They methodically destroyed the roads. They made pits that prevented driving in and out of the village, even in dry weather. Even walking was quite hard. You can’t use flashlights at night, but you still have to advance.”
Another soldier, using the call-sign Pikachu, said men in his unit "tried our best. We made it."
"The dismount was not great," the soldier acknowledged. "We advanced slowly but surely. They were shooting, everything was flying. It was scary, but we moved on. Nobody fell back. Everyone did a great job.
"Many of us who went will never return home."
** Drones target Moscow, high-rise building hit
The Russian military said its anti-aircraft units had thwarted a Ukrainian "terrorist attack" early on Tuesday and downed drones targeting Moscow, but one drone, sent out of control by its units, struck the same high-rise tower hit earlier in the week.
Video obtained by Reuters showed a fiery ball exploding amid a loud boom by high-rise buildings in the Moskva Citi business complex. A plume of smoke billowed into the night sky.
"On the night of August 1st, an attempted terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime with lethal drones on targets in Moscow and Moscow region was thwarted," the Defence Ministry said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
Two drones, the Ministry said, had been downed in suburbs west of the city centre.
"Yet another (drone) was hit by radio-electronic equipment and, having run out of control, crashed on the territory of the complex of non-residential buildings at Moskva Citi," the ministry said, referring to a business centre in the capital.
Vnukovo airport, one of three major airports serving the capital briefly shut down, but later resumed full operations.
Emergency services, quoted by Tass news agency, said debris from the falling drone had been located and would be sent for technical expertise.
Earlier, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said one of the drones targeting the capital had flown into the same tower at Moskva Citi that had been struck earlier in the week.
"One flew into the same tower at the Moskva Citi complex hit previously. The facade has been damaged on the 21st floor. Glazing was destroyed over 150 square metres."
Sobyanin said no injuries were reported.
Moskva Citi was hit by a drone attacks last Sunday -- one of several such incidents which have caused limited damage but generated widespread unease.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the day following that incident that Ukrainian attacks on Moscow and other Russian targets were "acts of desperation" and that Russia was taking all measures possible to protect against strikes.
Ukraine rarely comments on incidents that take place on Russian territory in its war against Moscow, now in its 17th month.
But this week, in an oblique reference to drone attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the war "is returning to the territory of Russia - to its symbolic centres and military bases".
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Russian defense chief provides new estimate of Ukrainian losses
Russian forces have stopped Ukraine’s much-hyped counteroffensive dead in its tracks, inflicting tens of thousands of casualties on Kiev’s troops, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Monday.
Speaking at a conference attended by senior military commanders, Shoigu noted that Kiev “is desperately throwing new forces in a bid to storm our positions” but the Russian military thwarted all breakthrough attempts by relying on well-built and organized defenses, adding that the endurance of military personnel played an instrumental role in the success.
As a result, in July, Ukraine lost 20,824 service members and 2,227 units of military equipment, including 10 German-supplied Leopard tanks, 11 US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, and 50 self-propelled guns from several Western countries, the minister stated.
According to Shoigu, on July 26 and 27 alone Ukraine lost more than 400 service members and 31 tanks and other heavy weaponry near the settlement of Rabotino in Russia’s Zaporozhye Region. Last week, a video surfaced on social media purporting to show a “graveyard” of Bradleys filmed at the same location.
“It is obvious that the Western-supplied weapons are failing to bring success on the battlefield and only prolong the military conflict,” Shoigu said.
Short of any combat accomplishments, “the Kiev regime, with the support of its Western sponsors, is now focused on carrying out terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure” in Russian cities, Shoigu noted, adding that Moscow has introduced additional security measures and ramped up attacks on Ukrainian military facilities.
Kiev launched its much-anticipated counteroffensive against Russian defenses in the early days of June, but failed to gain any ground, according to the Defense Ministry in Moscow. Ukrainian officials have attributed the difficulties to delays in Western arms shipments, extensive minefields, lack of air support and stiff Russian resistance.
Meanwhile, several media reports have suggested that Kiev’s Western allies have grown “alarmed” at the slow progress on the battlefield, while being “jolted” by Ukrainian losses in armor. In addition, a Financial Times report from late June suggested that future Western support would depend on the results of the counteroffensive, which have so far been underwhelming.
** Ex-Russian president sees benefit in Kiev’s refusal to talk
Kiev’s refusal to hold negotiations with Moscow has advantages, as it allows Russia to push on with accomplishing all of its military campaign goals in Ukraine, former President Dmitry Medvedev has said.
Writing on Telegram on Monday, Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, expressed delight that the “decaying corpse of Ukraine” is being led by servile and “corrupt hustlers and stoned clowns who pray for their Western masters.”
He went on to describe Kiev’s decision to “put forward an unviable ‘peace formula’ while rejecting all other options for holding negotiations with foam at the mouth” as “extremely beneficial.”
“All this will allow Russia to see the special military operation through to the very end. To the end of the Bandera regime. To the end of neo-Nazi ideology,” Medvedev said, referring to the notorious Ukrainian nationalist who collaborated with Germany during WWII.
According to the former president, Kiev’s policies will enable Moscow to eliminate all those “scumbags who brought death to many of their citizens for the sake of the money they stole from the West and in order to satisfy their malign ambitions.”
Since the early days of the Ukraine conflict, Russian officials have repeatedly signaled that they are open to talks with Kiev. However, in October 2022, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky signed a decree prohibiting talks with the current Russian government. The move came after four former Ukrainian regions overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in public referendums.
Later, the Ukrainian president floated a ten-point ‘peace formula’ that would require Moscow to withdraw all its troops from the territory Kiev claims as its own. Russia rejected the proposal as unacceptable, calling it a sign that Ukraine was not serious about talks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev are rooted in the threats posed to Russia by the US and NATO, which he said “refuse to negotiate on the issues of ensuring equal security.”
Reuters/RT