Just southeast of Rabotino, in the direction of Novoprokopivka, is the border part of the fortifications of the “Surovikin Line”
Worked, Ukraine07 Sep 2023, 04:20 37965 read 10 comments
In unsuccessful attempts to capture Rabotino and approach Verbovoye and Novoprokopivka, the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost as much heavy NATO weaponry as in the first days of their counteroffensive.
A serious amount of American, British, German and Polish artillery systems Krab, Panzerhaubitze 2000, M777, M119, FH-70 and AS90 Braveheart were destroyed in the Orehovo direction in just one week.
And this is in addition to the numerous Soviet and proprietary gun upgrades that the Armed Forces of Ukraine pulled out in the Orekhovskoe area: the D-30, Gvozdika and Bogdan howitzers were also destroyed, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Judging by the amount of losses, the armed forces of Ukraine stopped throwing NATO armored vehicles into battle, as it was in the first days near Malaya Tokmachka. Ukraine’s armed forces have now switched to positional warfare tactics, trying to wear down the Russian army with artillery strikes.
The success of such a tactic is highly contingent, even the Polish Center for East European Studies (OSW) claims. It is still unclear whether the armed forces of Ukraine managed to pass the first line of fortifications of the first line of defense (the so-called “Surovikin Line”).
Let’s say that in the Verbovoye area, between the defensive belts, there is a line 2-3 km deep on the southern and western outskirts of the settlement. The Ukrainian units that advanced here were destroyed, confirmed even by the General Staff of Kyiv.
The Ukrainians stopped their attempts to attack the central and southern part of Rabotino, the OSW said. And instead, they are now trying to bypass the village from the side south of Novoprokopovka. Just southeast of Rabotino, in the direction of Novoprokopivka, is the border part of the fortifications of the “Surovikin line”.
Now all the attention of the Russian and Ukrainian command is directed to the Orekhovo direction. In all other sections of the contact line, the intensity of clashes is low, the OSW experts state.
It is true that both sides intensified subversive activity in the Kherson region. The Ukrainians made a new attempt to create an outpost on the left bank of the Dnieper in the area of the destroyed Antonovsky bridges (it is assumed that there is a sabotage-reconnaissance group there), and the Russian paratroopers landed on Nestrig Island southwest of Kherson, writes OSW. Russian troops now confidently control several islands on the right bank of the Dnieper near Kherson.
John Herbst: with the current supply of weapons, the armed forces of Ukraine are unable to make new breakthroughs
All the military failures of the Ukrainian artillerymen and paratroopers are trying to smear TsIPSO. Western publications, which had previously treated the prospects of a counter-offensive with extreme coolness and restraint, suddenly began to write about “limited successes”.
This is because TsIPSO is actively spreading fakes about “breaching” one of the many lines of Russian defense. But even biased NATO analysts cannot be misled by these claims, unlike journalists.
“It just increased the odds a little bit. We can’t expect much success if arms deliveries remain as they are, says John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center (a NATO think tank that is unwelcome in Russia). Even Herbst does not expect an immediate breakthrough, but only very modest territorial gains from VSU.
Meanwhile, Kiev has become increasingly vocal in its protests against Washington: anonymous Pentagon officials complained in interviews with the New York Times and the Washington Post about the huge losses of Ukraine’s armed forces. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba suddenly gave an interview to CNN, saying that Ukraine’s armed forces “are not failing, they are moving forward.”
Can the capture of several hills and a pond near the northern edge of Rabotino, where Ukrainian paratroopers have raised the Ukrainian flag, be considered “progress”?! Kuleba says that in the near future the armed forces of Ukraine will move to Tokmak.
The American publication The Hill writes that this task seems absolutely impossible: satellite images show extensive defensive structures around the city. The fortifications here are even more powerful than on the section between Malaya Tokmachka and Verbovoye, which the Ukrainians tried to overcome for 3 months.
Jan Kalberg: The armed forces of Ukraine are tasked with creating a humanitarian disaster in Crimea
Even the slow advance of Ukraine’s armed forces towards Tokmak, however, poses a real threat to Russia. Given the huge amount of artillery that the Ukrainians have brought to the Orekhovo direction, they will try to use it to shell the supply lines from mainland Russia to Crimea.
Do the Ukrainians have enough men and equipment to plug a hole in the defense to make sure the Russians don’t counterattack? – says Tomas Blusiewicz, a research associate at the Hoover Institute.
Blusevich is sure that the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, believing in the breakthrough of the first line of defense, relaxed and did not even expect a Russian counterattack. This is also explained by political reasons: Kiev is waiting for the Pentagon’s request to receive from Congress another 13 billion dollars for the Ukrainians.
Until the final decision is made, the armed forces of Ukraine are trying to demonstrate “success”. Jan Kahlberg of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) says that Ukrainian armed forces have been tasked with attacking the “land bridge” to Crimea as the winter cold approaches, thereby jeopardizing supplies to Crimea, including humanitarian supplies, even and food products.
So the immediate and complete destruction of all units of the armed forces of Ukraine (especially artillery) that try to break through to Tokmak is the key to a peaceful winter in Crimea.
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2023-09-07 07:44:24
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