Ukraine steps up attacks on key Russian targets in the south.
A critical bridge shelled. A fighter jet shot out of the sky. Ammunition depots destroyed. A cluster of soldiers attacked.Ukraine’s intensifying attacks on Russian forces in just the last 48 hours in Kherson Province are raising a question: Is the ground being laid for a broad counteroffensive?
The southern city of Kherson fell to Russian forces in early March, and Moscow is now trying to absorb the province. Kherson, a port and shipbuilding center, is also a staging ground for Russia’s military operations across southern Ukraine.
That means any attempt to recapture the city would have immense strategic and symbolic value for the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky. A counteroffensive also would signal a significant shift in the war, and the timing is critical. A Pentagon spokesman said on Tuesday that Russia planned to annex territories it has captured, including Kherson.
“Ukraine and its Western partners may have a narrowing window of opportunity to support a Ukrainian counteroffensive into occupied Ukrainian territory before the Kremlin annexes that territory,” said the spokesman, John Kirby.
Since April, Ukrainian forces have effectively been locked into a defensive posture as they gradually retreated from an onslaught of Russian artillery in the eastern Donbas region. The Russians have not seized new territory in weeks, and the Ukrainians say their defensive positions have stabilized.
But the purpose of the longer-range missile systems that Ukraine has been pleading for, and that Western countries have increasingly started to supply to its government, is not just to forestall Russia’s advance, but also to win back lost territory.
“We all strive to liberate Ukraine from the enemy,” the spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern forces, Natalia Humeniuk, said on Tuesday. “We have a single goal.”
Ukraine used a HIMARS artillery weapon, newly supplied by the United States, to hit the Antonivsky bridge in Kherson on Tuesday, an adviser to country’s interior minister said. The bridge has been the main transit route for Russian supplies coming in from Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014. Eleven more missiles hit the bridge on Wednesday, according to the deputy head of the pro-Russia administration in Kherson.
The bridge is a “key vulnerability for Russian forces,” a British intelligence report said.
Ukraine’s armed forces also said on Wednesday that they had blown up a Russian radar system in Kherson using missiles fired from more than 60 miles away — a day after Ukraine’s air force command said it had shot down a Russian fighter jet above agricultural land in Kherson and struck warehouses that are crucial for resupplying Russia’s forces west of the Dnipro River.
Ukrainian forces also struck a cluster of Russian forces, an adviser to the head of the province’s military administration said on Tuesday, adding that casualties were still being assessed.
Those accounts could not be independently verified, although some of the attacks were captured on video.
Since May, Ukrainian forces have fought a series of skirmishes in northern Kherson, reclaiming villages, targeting rail lines and fighting for control of roads. It has been unclear whether the advances were primarily intended to divert Moscow’s forces from larger battles in Donbas or were the prelude to a bigger regional push.
If Ukraine does mount a broad counteroffensive, it will force both sides to confront difficult decisions, military analysts say. For Mr. Zelensky, it will test whether his forces are capable of doing more than holding their ground and whether his vow to reclaim ground lost to Russia since 2014 is feasible.
Russia’s military, on the other hand, would need to decide how deeply to commit to the defense of a territory, particularly if the bridge is destroyed and the resupply of its forces under attack becomes more difficult.
Ukraine steps up attacks on key Russian targets in the south. - The New York Times
2 Attachment(s)
Ukraine update: The bridge at Nova Kakhovka and the bridge at Kherson
Way back at the beginning of Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine—a whole five months ago—Kherson was one of the first places where rapidly advancing Russian forces got a serious bloody nose. In attempting to capture the bridge over the wide Dnipro River east of the city, Russia first claimed that they had it, then Ukraine took it back, the Russia claimed they had it again, only to have it turn back in Ukrainian hands the next day.
Then, just a few days later, Kherson was suddenly in Russian hands. What had seemed to be a hard-fought resistance crumpled. Forces from the local territorial defense laid down their arms. No one took the obvious move of blowing up that bridge to prevent Russian forces from entering the city.
It wasn’t until a month later we understood that Kherson had been betrayed. The actual plan for Kherson had been to blow up the bridge east of the city, along with a second bridge 50km to the north between Mykolaivka and Nova Kakhovka. Finally, forces were meant to destroy the damn north of that second bridge, flooding the low ground east of the river and ensuring that the city had an even wider buffer holding back Russian forces.
Had that plan been carried out, there is a good chance that Kherson—the city and the oblast—would never have been occupied by Russia at all. As kos reported back in March, all of this was expected to take place in a single day as soon as Russia initiated hostilities. Only a whole series of officials in the area were apparently long-time beneficiaries of a pipeline of cash flowing out of Moscow. Instead of ordering forces to carry out the plan, they literally walked away from their posts, leaving Kherson open to a nearly effort-free invasion by Russian troops.
March was also the first month in which Ukraine announced a counteroffensive to recapture Kherson. And it seemed to be going well at the time, “What is happening now along the road between Mykolaiv and Kherson. Ukrainian forces are advancing from village to village, dislodging Russian troops and reversing a Russian advance that stalled out a week ago.” Expectations were that Russian forces, caught in the featureless plain west of the city, would hustle back to an area they could better defend. Within days, there were reports of gunfire heard in the streets of Kherson, and claims that Russian soldiers were loading up trucks with loot, ready to flee the city.
In April, Russian forces advanced west of Kherson to capture a series of towns whose names—like Snihurivka, Vysokopillya, and Davydiv Brid—whose names have become way too familiar to those who are following this war closely. Because Russia is still in these towns. Another Ukrainian counteroffensive later that month got Ukrainian troops close enough to the city to launch artillery into the airport area to the west. For everything that’s happened since … that’s pretty much where things stands now.
For the last month, Ukraine has been engaged in another announced counteroffensive in the Kherson region. At times, that effort has generated excitement, as when Ukrainian forces crossed the Inhulets River south of Davydiv Brid and moved swiftly to capture a number of villages on what had been the “Russian bank.” More often, the counteroffensive has been frustrating in failing to produce any visible results. But then, Ukraine has insisted from the outset that the operational security is all important and that this time, unlike other events in Ukraine, they intended to clamp down on all those tantalizing Telegram posts and Twitter videos. The fact that foreign observers are frustrated doesn’t mean Ukraine isn’t hitting their own goals. But those goals certainly don’t seem to be getting back into the city any time soon.
At various times over the last month, fighting in the area has bulged in toward Kherson along that main road leading down from Mykolaiv. Or it’s churned up the southern tip of the the oblast down around Stanislav. Or it’s pushed through the middle at that cross-river breakthrough. Or it’s … you get the idea.
For the third time in five months, Ukrainian forces have pushed close enough to Kherson to drop artillery all around the city (they could undoubtedly hit targets in the city, as well, if they weren’t trying to avoid damage to civilian areas) but “just 15km out of Kherson” seems to be an endless refrain, and not a lot seems to be happening to bridge that gap.
For some weeks, there has been news that Ukraine plans the real counteroffensive for some time in August. Which, to be honest, seems reasonable. With every passing day, more weapons are arriving in Ukraine from the West while more of Russia’s army is converted into shrapnel. The idea that by August Ukraine might be in a position to bring in well-equipped, freshly trained troops with shiny new gear to face the remains of Russian BTGs that have been sitting on the front lines for weeks in battered gear that dates back to the days of disco, isn’t just appealing, but probably pretty good strategy.
Except that there are other voices who have begun to suspect that the target of the Kherson counteroffensive isn’t Kherson at all. It’s that bridge at Nova Kakhovka.
Attachment 90072
Russia took that bridge just one day after they strolled into Kherson. Having both bridges gives them a backup to the Kherson bridge when it comes to supply lines. It’s what makes Russia’s presence west of the Dnipro robust enough to think about making runs at Mykolaiv or Kryvyi Rih. The idea that Ukraine might go after that bridge in order to cut off Russian forces in the west and make Russia think very seriously about whether Kherson is really “Russia forever” also dates back to the early days of the war.
As someone said back in April, “If Ukraine could move quickly toward that bridge, they could potentially cut off a large Russian force, stranding them on the west side of the river.” Yeah, that. Nothing would make it easier to capture Kherson than having that bridge east of the city be the only remaining bus out of town. Only … you could also do it the other way around.
What if someone took out the bridge east of Kherson, and Russian forces found their only lifeline back to the remainder of their forces, and their only source of supplies, was a bridge 50km to the north, at a position that’s much less well defended? Russia has a dozen BTGs clustered around Kherson. They have dug-in and fortified positions. They have forces in the city itself, where Ukraine definitely doesn’t want to employ heavy weapons. That’s a big obstacle.
As long as Russia can stay there.
And that was a lot of prequel before getting around to saying that Ukraine has been deliberately painting a picture for Russia over the last week. A picture that says “look here, boys, we can take out those bridges any time we want.”
The first big part of that message came a week ago when Ukraine struck an ammunition depot at Nova Kakhovka, resulting in a massive explosive.
Russian ammunition depot 'destroyed' in Ukraine's Kherson - YouTube
Not only did this attack, and strikes against several other such depots across Ukraine, coincide with a not-so-mysterious drop in Russian artillery usage, it showed Russia that Ukraine was positioned—very likely with U.S. HIMARS systems—to precisely strike targets all the way over on the other side of the river. If this shot had been made from that area across the Inhulets liberated by Ukraine, it would have been about 50km from the ammo depot. But it’s highly unlikely that Ukraine would put a HIMARS system at risk by moving it that far forward. More likely this was made by a unit based well back of the lines and operating near the operational range of standard HIMARS rockets at about 85km. So … helluva shot.
Since then, Ukraine has demonstrated their skills again, and drawn a double-underscore beneath their message, by putting serious pockmarks in the bridge that is directly east of Kherson, the Antonovskiy Bridge. That bridge was hit not once, but reportedly 11 times, making some serious pockmarks in the surface of the roadway.
Unlike some of the other bridges that have been critical in this war, the Antonovskiy Bridge is not just bridging a short gap across a dam or divided into segments. It’s a 1km bridge, a genuine architectural masterpiece. If it goes down, it will be sad. It also will not go back up in a hurry.
As U.K. intelligence notes, this is the critical piece of infrastructure in the region.
Attachment 90073
The UK Ministry of Defense sums all this up in a sentence: “Control of Dnipro crossing is likely to become a key factor in the outcome of fighting in the region.”
Exactly what Ukraine hit that bridge with is still in question. HIMARS seems like the obvious answer, though it’s unclear that the damage the bridge took in that barrage matches what a pod or two of HIMARS missiles would achieve. There have also been indications that GPS-controlled Excalibur shells fired from an M777 were the source of the damage. Honestly, it’s just over 20km from the bridge to areas under Ukrainian control. If they’re willing to position a gun far forward, there’s no reason to think the bridge wasn’t hit by a well-aimed grouping of standard artillery shells.
Whatever the case, those holes in the bridge have to be making Russia think very carefully. If Ukraine is about to make a big push in Kherson, they’ve made it clear that can take out one or both of the bridges whenever they choose.
If they do, Russian forces could find themselves trying to hold their positions with no easy way to get more troops, more equipment, or more ammunition.
Russia has repeatedly made the declaration that Kherson is “Russia forever,” and there have even been hints that, should Ukraine move to retake “Russian territory,” that would be legitimate cause for dragging out a tactical nuke from storage. Assuming they haven’t all been sold for parts.
But Russia has repeatedly put off those referendums it’s been talking about since days after taking Kherson. Maybe that’s because they realize that “forever” might only be a few more weeks.
Over on Telegram, the pro-Russian ensemble “Rybar” is reporting that Ukraine seems to be completing its preparations for the real push in Kherson oblast.
- Over the past 24 hours, artillery crews and MLRS of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have attacked the Antonovskiy Bridge, Berislav, Lyubymivka, Snihurivka, Novovoznesenske, Olgino, and Zolota Balka.
- The offensive will be preceded by massive artillery shelling from M777 howitzers on the positions of the Russian Armed Forces on the line of contact.
- HIMARS high-precision munitions have practically disabled the Antonovskiy Bridge, which complicates the supply of the Russian group in this direction.
Yes. For Russians in the Kherson area, it seems like things are about to get very complicated.
Buckle up.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/202...ampaign=recent
Russia declares expanded war goals beyond Ukraine's Donbas
- Foreign minister says geographical reality has changed
- Russia may push deeper as West supplies long-range arms
- Ukraine says comments show Russia aims to grab more land
LONDON, July 20 (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Moscow's military "tasks" in Ukraine now went beyond the eastern Donbas region, in the clearest acknowledgment yet that it has expanded its war goals.
In an interview with state media nearly five months after Russia's invasion, the foreign minister also said peace talks made no sense at the moment because Western governments were leaning on Ukraine to fight rather than negotiate.
Ukraine's foreign minister retorted that Russia wanted "blood, not talks".
When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, President Vladimir Putin explicitly denied any intention of occupying his neighbour. He said then that his aim was to demilitarise and "denazify" Ukraine - a statement dismissed by Kyiv and the West as a pretext for an imperial-style war of expansion.
But Lavrov said geographical realities had changed since Russian and Ukrainian negotiators held peace talks in Turkey in late March that failed to produce any breakthrough.
At that time, he said, the focus was on the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR), self-styled breakaway entities in eastern Ukraine from which Russia has said it aims to drive out Ukrainian government forces.
"Now the geography is different, it's far from being just the DPR and LPR, it's also Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and a number of other territories," he said, referring to areas well beyond the Donbas that Russia has wholly or partly seized.
"This process is continuing logically and persistently."
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba responded: "By confessing dreams to grab more Ukrainian land, (the) Russian foreign minister proves that Russia rejects diplomacy and focuses on war and terror. Russians want blood, not talks."
Lavrov said Russia might need to push even deeper if the West, out of "impotent rage" or desire to aggravate the situation further, kept pumping Ukraine with long-range weapons such as the U.S.-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).
"That means the geographical tasks will extend still further from the current line," he said.
Russia could not allow Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy "or whoever replaces him" to threaten its territory or that of the DPR and LPR with the longer-range systems, he said - referring casually, and without any evidence, to the possibility that the Ukrainian leader might not remain in power.
After failing to take the Ukrainian capital Kyiv at the start of the war, Russia said in March it would focus on "achieving the main goal, the liberation of Donbas".
Nearly four months later, it has taken Luhansk, one of two provinces that comprise the Donbas, but remains far from capturing all of the other, Donetsk. In the past few weeks it has ramped up missile strikes on cities across Ukraine.
Lavrov spoke a day after the White House said Russia was starting to roll out a plan to annex large parts of southern Ukraine under the cover of "sham referendums".
Russian-imposed officials in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia have outlined plans to hold plebiscites in the coming months. The Kremlin says it is up to people living there to decide their own futures.
Russia declares expanded war goals beyond Ukraine'''s Donbas | Reuters
“the closest thing I’ve ever seen to hell,”
Foreign soldiers flocked to Ukraine after Russia invaded. Five months on, the fighting is taking a heavy toll.
Relentless Russian bombings were “the closest thing I’ve ever seen to hell,” an American who served several tours of the Middle East said.
After a thrilling first few months of unexpected success that boosted morale among the Ukrainian ranks, the reality of the bloodiest European conflict since World War II has taken its toll among some of the thousands of foreign fighters who traveled from abroad to battle the Russian invaders.
The war has long moved past the Ukrainian victory in Kyiv’s suburbs, which are still scarred by the mass graves and blown-out buildings of the Russian occupation. Instead, after months of battle, soldiers push for excruciatingly incremental gains from trenches in the grassy plains and farm fields of the country’s east and south.
It’s now a grueling artillery slugfest.
Round after round hits near Ukrainian lines, filling the air with dirt, sand and ash and forcing soldiers to burrow into deep trenches. As Ukrainian troops wait for an opening or calculate the position of a potential target, explosions resonate around them with regular thuds — sometimes for 12 hours at a time. The seeming randomness of the strikes intensifies the feeling among some that survival might come down to sheer luck.
An American fighting for Ukraine who served in the U.S. Army with combat tours in the Middle East described the constant Russian bombardment of the city of Severodonetsk in Ukraine’s Donbas region as “the closest thing I’ve ever seen to hell.”
Ukraine Armed Forces estimate that Russia is using eight times as many artillery munitions each day, firing thousands more shells than the Ukrainians and stymying their efforts.
“We lost three guys,” after fighting near Severodonetsk, the soldier said. “My commander got killed out there. A buddy of mine got killed out there. When s— like that happens, it’s hard to imagine the way forward.”
The Ukrainian losses have been steep: as many as 100 to 200 casualties per day at the worst points in the war, according to Ukraine’s own estimates. These brutal losses have eroded morale within the ranks and in other units, five non-Ukrainian soldiers said in interviews over the past month. Four of the soldiers have not made their identities public and asked that their names not be used out of concern for their security and so they could speak freely about their experiences.
“The number of people that are upset and have low morale has increased, and that’s partly because of the way the Russians have chosen to fight,” Ripley Rawlings, a retired U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel and author, who is providing supplies to foreign fighters in Ukraine through his U.S.-based organization, Ripley’s Heroes, said.
Rawlings, who traveled to Ukraine recently and is sending everything from scopes and goggles to trucks and e-bikes to the troops there, said that “about half of the units that we support have taken terrible hits lately.”
Despite the challenges, fighters who spoke to NBC News remained adamant about their commitment to pushing out the Kremlin’s forces. The soldiers admitted, however, that supply shortages, delays in receiving weapons promised by the West, and communication frustrations have challenged their spirits after months of battle.
Other common complaints included that counter-offensive strategies were undermined by older Ukrainian commanders sticking to Soviet tactics. They also noted poor communication among groups, with one soldier highlighting the lack of “a centralized unit that has everybody by the tail and knowing where people are.”
The Kremlin alleges that there are no longer any foreign fighters in Ukraine and that any who remain are mercenaries. Ukraine’s International Legion, meanwhile, said that its soldiers must follow the same disciplinary rules as other Ukrainian soldiers. They are also paid at the same rate: around $500 per month, depending on rank, with the opportunity for bonuses.
Thus they are owed the same treatment as any Ukrainian soldier if captured, said Damien Magrou, the legion’s spokesperson.
Magrou, a Dutch lawyer and a corporal in the legion, said at a news conference this month that Russian disinformation has negatively affected the group’s recruitment, reputation and fundraising, and he told NBC News on Wednesday that because of recent challenges they “are exploring avenues to widen our recruitment.”
As of now, legion members are required to have live combat experience and must pass background checks and a psychological exam to join. Citing security concerns, Magrou declined to say how many soldiers were in the legion or the number of casualties.
“There’s been a gradual dip in the number of arrivals over the course of the last few months, which isn’t very surprising given that attention in Western media has shifted elsewhere and the more motivated fighters made their decision in the beginning,” Magrou said over WhatsApp.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u...rans-rcna39268
Ukrainian Missile Crews May Be Creeping Closer To A Key Russian-Held City
The Russian air force lost another one of its best fighter planes over Ukraine on Tuesday. The shoot-down of what appears to be a Sukhoi Su-35 could be the result of a skillful, and lucky, long-range shot by a Ukrainian air-defense battery. It could also be yet another friendly-fire incident.
But it just mightindicate that Ukrainan forces are closer than many analysts assume to Kherson, a southern port city that’s been under Russian control since early in Russia’s wider war on Ukraine—and which is the main focus of Ukraine’s so-far modest southern counteroffensive.
The Sukhoi was patrolling over Nova Kakhovka, 40 miles east of Russian-occupied Kherson on the southern bank of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine when it exploded on Tuesday evening.
Videos that circulated on social media depict the jet tumbling to the ground—and also depict the pilot, having ejected, slowly descending under his parachute.
It was the 36th fighter the Russian air force had lost over Ukraine, and the second or third Su-35, which is the latest single-seat version of the classic Su-27.
The Ukrainian air force quickly took credit for the kill. “Excellent work of the anti-aircraft missile forces,” the air force tweeted. “Ground air-defense of Ukraine ‘landed’ another fighter jet.”
https://twitter.com/KpsZSU/status/15...0ba084d28b4935
By “ground air-defense,” the Ukrainian air force almost certainly is referring to its S-300PT/PS air-defense systems, dozens of batteries of which it and the Ukrainian army inherited from the Soviet Union on the latter’s dissolution in 1991.
Ukraine’s best S-300PS, which fights in batteries each with several wheeled launchers and associated command and radar vehicles, has a range of just 50 miles or so.
If it was an S-300PS that took down that Su-35, it might have done so at the edge of its range. It’s also possible the battery managed to creep to within comfortable firing distance of Nova Kakhova.
Nova Kakhovka is 50 miles east of the main territorial salient that, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War, Ukrainian troops have carved out north of Kherson as they slowly advance toward that port city.
The months-old line of contact between Russian and Ukrainian forces along the Inhulets River is only slightly closer: 35 miles or so to the north of Nova Kakhovka.
Of course, an S-300 battery is too vulnerable, and too valuable, to set up at the line of contact. More likely, Ukrainian forces deploy their S-300s miles from known enemy positions.
That makes a kill over Nova Kakhovka even more impressive ... or more telling. The Ukrainians had to detect the Su-35, perhaps using a 200-mile-range Tin Shield surveillance radar, then engage with—say—an 5V55R missile assisted by a Flap Lid tracking radar.
All of these systems have limitations. For that reason, an S-300PS/PT crew is happiest taking on targets closer than 50 miles away.
Maybe the S-300 crew in the Tuesday shoot-down was highly skilled and extremely lucky and scored its alleged kill from well inside established Ukrainian lines north of Kherson or to the east of the city along the Inhulets River.
Or maybe Ukrainian troops are closer to Kherson, or farther south of the Inhulets, than analysts currently believe.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidax...h=6c8ba8227add
UPDATE 3-Russia says it destroyed 4 HIMARS launchers, in claim denied by Ukraine
LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) - Russia's defence ministry said on Friday its forces had destroyed four U.S.-supplied high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) in Ukraine earlier this month, a claim that was denied both by Kyiv and Washington.
Between July 5-20, "four launchers and one reloading vehicle for the U.S.-made multiple launch rocket systems (HIMARS) were destroyed," it said in a daily briefing.
Kyiv rejected Moscow's claims, calling them "fakes" designed to undermine the West's support for Ukraine.
A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the reports of any HIMARS being destroyed were not true.
Reuters could not verify battlefield reports.
Kyiv has hailed the arrival of eight HIMARS in Ukraine as a possible game changer for the course of the war, now about to enter its sixth month.
The advanced weapons are more precise and offer a longer range than other artillery systems, allowing Kyiv to strike Russian targets and weapons depots further behind the front lines.
Moscow has accused the West of dragging out the conflict by supplying Kyiv with more arms, and said the supply of longer-range weapons justifies Russia's attempts to expand control over more Ukrainian territory, beyond the eastern Donbas region, for its own protection.
On July 6, just days after the first HIMARS arrived in Ukraine, Russia's defence ministry said it had destroyed two of them, releasing a video of the alleged strike.
Ukraine has rejected Russia's claims and said it was using the U.S.-supplied arms to inflict "devastating blows" on Russian forces.
Serhiy Leshchenko, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's chief of staff, said on Friday that Ukraine continued to use HIMARS to "cause numerous losses to the aggressor state."
"Russia is trying to stop the supply of weapons from the West and intimidate Ukraine's allies with the fictional power of Russia's armed forces," he said in a media briefing.
This week Kyiv has used HIMARS to strike a crucial bridge across the Dnipro river in Russian-controlled parts of the southern Kherson region, punching huge holes in the asphalt and prompting local Russian-installed officials to warn it could be completely destroyed if the attacks continue.
The United States said on Wednesday it will send four more HIMARS to Ukraine in its latest package of military support.
UPDATE 3-Russia says it destroyed 4 HIMARS launchers, in claim denied by Ukraine
Russian claims to have destroyed four Himars systems are not true, say US and Ukraine
Quote:
Originally Posted by
sabang
Russia's defence ministry
:smileylaughing:
They have done nothing but lie since the start of the war. Almost everything that the MOD says is a lie or fabrication in some way. It is not just the Ukrainians saying it is fake news, it is the US as well...
Russia's defence ministry said on Friday its forces had destroyed four US-supplied high mobility artillery rocket systems (Himars) in Ukraine earlier this month, a claim that was denied both by Kyiv and Washington.
Between July 5-20, "four launchers and one reloading vehicle for the US-made multiple launch rocket systems (Himars) were destroyed," it said in a daily briefing.
Kyiv rejected Moscow's claims, calling them "fakes" designed to undermine the West's support for Ukraine.
A US official, speaking to Reuters on the condition of anonymity, said the reports of any Himars being destroyed were not true.
Russian claims to have destroyed four Himars systems are not true, say US and Ukraine
Russia’s Medvedev warns of Ukraine’s ‘elimination from world map’
Former Russian president has warned of Ukraine’s elimination from the world map amid NATO’s military assistance to Kiev.
In his latest post on Telegram on Thursday, Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, warned that the West’s military response to the Ukrainian conflict could mean “Ukraine would lose the remnants of state sovereignty and disappear from the world map.”
Medvedev accused NATO of creating a “real threat of world conflict” by sending military equipment and troops to Ukraine and other countries on Europe’s eastern flank, such as Estonia and Lithuania.
“NATO continues, contrary to logic and common sense, to approach the borders of Russia, creating a real threat of world conflict and the death of a significant part of humanity,” he wrote.
Medvedev also accused EU leaders of “forcing the unfortunate Ukrainians to sacrifice their lives to join the European Union”.He warned that “ordinary Europeans will be fiercely cold in their homes this winter,” after the EU imposed sanctions on Moscow and caused Russia to reduce gas flows to most of the EU countries.His warnings came on the heels of his previous remarks that Ukraine and the West would face a “Judgment Day” response if they tried to oppose Russia’s control of Crimea by military action.
The former president also warned that the refusal of Ukraine and Western powers to recognize Moscow’s ownership of the peninsula posed a “systemic threat” for Russia, and raised the alarm over the Kremlin’s use of maximum force if the territory is attacked.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made similar comments on Wednesday, saying that Russia’s military “tasks” and objectives in Ukraine will expand further if the West keeps supplying Kiev with weapons and armaments.
“That means the geographical tasks will extend still further from the current line,” Lavrov said.‘Grandfather with dementia’Meanwhile, Medvedev dismissed the US sanctions against Russia and depicted President Joe Biden as a “strange grandfather with dementia”.
“The fact that the Americans elected their president a strange grandfather with dementia, who, forgetting about his duties, loves another country much more than his own,” Medvedev wrote on Telegram.
He said the US and the EU have “lost their multi-billion dollar investments in the Russian economy” by imposing financial sanctions on Moscow.
Belarus: West fanning flames of war Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko accused Western countries of fomenting the war between Russia and Ukraine, and called on the sides to halt the conflict in Ukraine in order to avoid the “abyss of nuclear war.”
“We must stop, reach an agreement, end this mess, operation and war in Ukraine,” Lukashenko said in an interview with AFP news agency in Minsk on Thursday.
“There’s no need to go further. Further lies the abyss of nuclear war. There’s no need to go there,” he added.
He also said NATO allies could have attacked Russia if Moscow had not been not quick enough to "liberate" Ukraine.
“If Russia had not got ahead of you, members of NATO, you would have organized and struck a blow against it,” he said, echoing Russian President Vladimir Putin.The Belarusian leader said the ongoing conflict could have been avoided if the West had given Moscow the security guarantees it wanted. “You, members of NATO and Americans, needed war.”
He demanded that Ukrainian authorities hold talks with Russia and agree that “they will never threaten” the country.
Russia’s Medvedev warns of Ukraine’s ‘elimination from world map’
Yard By Yard, The Ukrainians Appear To Be Pushing Toward Kherson
Don’t get too excited about unconfirmed reports of Ukrainian forces surrounding hundreds, or even thousands, of Russian troops in a town 60 miles northeast of the port of Kherson in southern Ukraine.
But the flimsy rumors swirling around the purported pocket of surrounded Russian troops in Vysokopillya belie the real pressure the Russians are under along the southern front of Russia’s five-month-old wider war on Ukraine.
Having expended the last of its prewar combat power capturing the twin cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, the Russian army has hit pause on major offensive operations.
The Kremlin is busy raising volunteer battalions to make good the tens of thousands of soldiers the army has buried or sent to hospitals since late February. Ukrainian commanders have taken advantage of the Russian pause—and the simultaneous arrival of U.S.-made rockets—to ratchet up strikes on Russian radars, command posts and supply lines.
The rocket attacks are helping to destabilize Russian defenses. And in the south around Kherson, that’s helped Ukrainian forces to inch toward the occupied port city with a pre-war population of 300,000, extending a tentative counteroffensive that began back in May.
It was apparent months ago that the Kremlin’s intensive focus on Donbas risked creating vulnerabilities elsewhere. At the peak of the fighting in Donbas in early July, three-quarters of the Russian army’s roughly 110 front-line battalions in Ukraine were in Donbas. Just a handful of battalions defended Russian gains in and around Kherson.
The Ukrainian army also concentrated its best forces in Donbas, of course—but not at the expense of the southern front. In late May, Ukrainian troops began pushing south toward Kherson, then 40 or so miles from the line of contact.
Two months later, Kyiv’s southern counteroffensive has pushed to within 15 miles of Kherson’s northernmost neighborhoods. A parallel Ukrainian effort farther east established a lodgement south of the Inhulets River outside Davydiv Brid.
The Ukrainians didn’t move quickly. And there’s no reason to believe they recently surrounded as many as 2,000 Russian troops in Vysokopillya.
But their accelerating momentum now is hard to ignore. Increasingly well-armed with new howitzers and multiple-launch rocket systems provided by the United States and other allies—and supported by the surviving pilots and planes of the small but stubborn Ukrainian air force—Kyiv’s troops in the south now are holding at risk Russian forces south of the Dnieper River.
That wide river, to which the Inhulets is a tributary, winds south and west through southern Ukraine, buttressing the southern edge of Kherson before emptying into the Black Sea.
On Tuesday, a missile battery belonging to the Ukrainian air force—apparently an S-300—reportedly shot down a Russian air force Su-35 fighter patrolling over Nova Kakhovka on the southern bank of the Dnieper, 50 miles east of Kherson and 35 miles south of the Inhulets.
The Ukrainian battery either pulled off a long-distance shot at the edge of the S-300’s range. Or it traveled far enough south to put Nova Kakhovka within easy reach.
The Dnieper is a problem for Russian logisticians. The best and most efficient way to move troops and supplies into Kherson and areas north of Kherson is across a pair of bridges spanning the river near the city. “Control of Dnieper crossings is likely to become a key factor in the outcome of fighting in the region,” the U.K. Defense Ministry stated.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian forces—artillery or rockets, most likely—struck the Antonovskiy Bridge, damaging but not dropping the span.
“They haven’t destroyed them yet,” Mike Martin, a fellow with the Department of War Studies at King's College London, wrote in reference to the Dnieper bridges. “They’ve just cratered them, making them unsuitable for heavy logistics. But if I were a Russian soldier in Kherson, I would be pretty scared right now.”
What happens next is anyone’s guess. Ukraine obviously wants Kherson, and its access to the Black Sea, back under its control. Russia obviously aims to keep its hold on the city.
But it’s unclear the depleted Russian army still possesses the means of defending Kherson—or can raise fresh battalions fast enough to reinforce the city as the Ukrainian army slowly approaches.
Of course, the Ukrainian army also lost thousands of troops in Donbas, so it’s unclear it’s in the best position for a major southern offensive unless, and until, it too can form fresh battalions.
But even in its battered state, the Ukrainian army has managed to maneuver toward Kherson. It’s possible the fight for the city itself could come soon. “I would be watching Kherson very closely over the next 10 days,” Martin wrote.
Yard By Yard, The Ukrainians Appear To Be Pushing Toward Kherson