Day 582: Sep 28
Today, there is a lot of news from the Vuhledar direction.
As you remember, Russian forces conducted multiple unsuccessful offensive operations in this region that quickly became the most notorious graveyards of the Russian tanks. It seems like the Russians gave up on trying to take Vuhledar by storm from the south, which is why the main clashes slowly moved to the north toward Novomykhailivka. The main idea is to penetrate the Ukrainian defenses through the fields, establish a stable bridgehead between Vuhledar and Marinka, and then strike both groups from the flanks. The Russian High Command also puts a lot of hope in this operation because if it is successful, Russians would be able to retake the initiative, forcing Ukrainians to cancel their counteroffensive and urgently redeploy forces to plug the hole in the front line. However, so far, the Russians progress here is negative – after months of continuous Russian strikes and assaults, Russians have lost one field in the aftermath of a Ukrainian counterattack back in August. That is why Russians were forced to develop a new tactic.
Recently released footage by Russian sources shows how Russians started launching kamikaze tanks through the fields. And this is not the first time Russians have used kamikaze tanks. Previously, after facing insurmountable resistance by the Ukrainian troops in the tree line, Russians loaded their tank with tons of explosives, the driver directed it toward the Ukrainian position and jumped off the vehicle, the tank got immobilized by a mine and exploded in the field.
Today, Russians demonstrated how they improved their suicide tactic. Now, before launching the kamikaze tank, Russians conducted a demining operation under Ukrainian fire, where one Russian tank would clear the path at least through the proximate to the Russians field. Next, Russians brought in one of their tanks filled with tons of explosives and safely escorted it with another tank to the death zone. Once the tanks entered the death zone, the Russian crew prudently jumped out of the tank onto the minefield and tried to escape under artillery and mortar fire while the kamikaze tank continued its movement. Finally, the tank once again was immobilized by a mine and exploded even further from the Ukrainian positions than previously.
What is interesting is that Russian sources claimed that it was not an assault but a demining operation, where Russians used a useless tank that they captured from Ukrainians anyway to demine the field. Military analysts pointed out that Russians should have a more effective tool for this purpose – UR-77 “Meteorite” – so, the goal of the operation was likely the same as the last time – to blow up the Ukrainian fortification – and it once again failed.
Such an inefficient expenditure of heavy equipment has a significant impact on the combat capability of the Russian forces that are fighting in this region. Recently released footage also shows hundreds of damaged pieces of equipment that are being relocated away from the front. As can be seen, the damage that the Russian BMD-2 vehicles incurred in most cases is substantial, so the repair will take a lot of time, and the Russian mechanized and motorized detachments will not be replenished for a long time.
By the way, it seems like very recently, the Russian high command lost faith in the commanders of detachments in and around Donetsk, and with no prospect of moving forward and establishing a sufficient buffer zone between the Ukrainian positions and the railways that connect Donetsk and Volnovakha, Russians started building another railway connection, 30 km away from the front. The construction has already commenced, and it is estimated to take at least half a year if everything goes smoothly.
Unfortunately for Russians, the whole length of the planned new railway connection is within HIMARS range, so the construction workers of the railroad will likely find themselves exactly in the same situation as the construction workers on the Antonivskyi Bridge near Kherson last year, making one step forward and two steps back every week. Ukrainian Intelligence and reconnaissance are already monitoring the development of each construction site.
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