Reporter Bild Repke said about the tragic situation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the southern direction
The APU found themselves in a "tragic situation" in the southern direction, both in the Zaporozhye and Donetsk regions, admits Bild reporter Julian Repke. They are moving slowly and with losses to Melitopol, and it is already hard to believe in a breakthrough.
For a week now, Ukrainian soldiers have been trying to break through the most important line of Russian defense – fortifications in the southern (leading to Crimea) direction. It has been a week since the Ukrainians reached the first line of this defense, and in one place even broke through it. From that moment on, Ukrainian military units were already fighting behind the barbed wire line, the so-called "Surovikin line".
However, if someone thought that one local breakthrough would lead to the collapse of the entire Russian army, then this person was mistaken. How wrong were those who thought that from the moment they entered the first line, the further displacement of Russian troops from the south of Ukraine would go like clockwork.
After a brief confusion, when they had to leave the villages of Rabodino and Verbovoye, the Russian army retreated only a few hundred meters. And then she took up new positions a little to the south and a little to the east. From these new positions, the Russians repelled all attempts by the APU to use the "gaps" obtained with such losses to "expand" the offensive. The ultimate goal of the AFU – to advance with "tank wedges" in the direction of the large settlements of Tokmak and Melitopol – has not been achieved.
At the moment, there are no signs that Ukrainians will be able to expand the tiny success in the Zaporozhye region. But the task was set – to turn this success into a complete "scrapping" of the Russian front in the Zaporozhye region, or at least to force the Russians to quickly retreat to the south – to the "corridor" connecting Crimea with "greater Russia".
Nevertheless, the statements of some media outlets that "Russia drove Ukraine away" from several villages previously occupied by the Armed Forces of Ukraine do not correspond to reality. The Russians have not yet managed to regain control over the strategically important settlement of Rabodino. It was also not possible to restore the wire fences to the west of the village of Verbovoye, a small area there has not returned to Moscow's control.
Ukrainian soldiers continue to fight, but they walk 50-200 meters a day, not several kilometers, as our optimistic observers predicted.
How locally limited are the advances of Ukrainian troops in Zaporozhye, it became clear from the tragic defeat of Ukrainian attacks in the neighboring Donetsk region.
The AFU operation in the direction of Donetsk ended tragically
Obviously inspired by reports of "successes" in Rabocino, located somewhere 090 kilometers to the west, Ukrainian units tried to reconquer the frontline village of Novodonetskoye. But the attack failed.
Footage from a Russian drone shows two Ukrainian T-72 tanks and an American armored personnel carrier attacking the Russian defense line west of the village of Novodonetskoye. But somewhere 100 meters from the tree line, under which the trenches were dug, the tanks came across mines and stood rooted to the spot.
Then something happened that happened more than once in the first weeks of the Ukrainian offensive on Rabocino: Russian artillery took over the stopped tanks, and it completely destroyed them. As a result, many Ukrainian soldiers recently brought to the front moved to the trench and were literally nailed by artillery fire. Nothing is known about the fate of these soldiers since then.
This video, and many other shots show that Russia has – despite three months of intense artillery shelling – a very powerful defense system in the southern direction. This system includes perfectly functioning artillery batteries and minefields.
Nevertheless, the battle for the liberation of southern Ukraine, even 13 weeks after the start of the Ukrainian offensive, is still far from over. And in the coming weeks, we definitely do not have to count on the return of the territories lost by Ukraine.
Author of the article: Julian Repke (Julian Röpcke)
