Is this the “counteroffensive” we’ve been hearing about for six months? RT:
Russian forces have repelled a renewed large-scale attack by Ukrainian troops in several parts of Donetsk and Zaporozhye Regions, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said in the early hours of Tuesday, claiming that Kiev’s armed formations and military units suffered “significant losses.”
“Having suffered heavy losses the day before, the Kiev regime reorganized the remnants of the 23rd and 31st mechanized brigades into separate combined units, which continued the offensive operations close to Novodarovka and Levadnoye,” said the ministry’s spokesman, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov.
The renewed offensive mainly focused on the village of Vremevka in Donetsk Region, but was stopped by missile, artillery and heavy rocket- propelled flamethrower strikes, according to Konashenkov.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ total losses in south Donetsk direction were over 1,500 servicemen, 28 tanks, including eight German-made Leopard tanks and three French-manufactured AMX-10 wheeled tanks, as well as 109 other armored fighting vehicles,” the Russian military spokesman said.
It was unclear if the tally included the losses from Sunday’s botched attack, which was described as “large-scale” yet “unsuccessful” by the Russian military. In that attempt alone, Kiev lost more than 250 service members, 16 tanks, three infantry vehicles, and 21 armored vehicles, according to the ministry.
Some videos circulated by military bloggers on Telegram showed what appeared to be several abandoned French AMX-10 light tanks, but did not include visual confirmation of the German-made Leopards reportedly lost in battle.
There are all kinds of abandoned vehicles fully intact that Russia has gobbled up during the last retreat.
That is sort of funnier than just blowing them up, no?
I would assume this is part of the “counteroffensive,” but I don’t really understand what the point would be in just sending in people and equipment to get destroyed. Maybe decades ago, it would make sense in terms of “testing defenses,” but we are not living in that sort of world anymore. The US should be able to know where the soft spots are without actually sending people in to test them, as a result of drone and satellite imagery.
Who even knows what these people are doing.
Frankly, I was expecting some kind of serious push from the Ukraine, which would force Russians to fall back, and then lead the Ukies into another slaughterfest.
But maybe we are seeing the “counteroffensive” already, and it is just terrorist attacks on Belgorod, random drone bombings of civilians deep inside of pre-war Russia, and sending suicide squads to get blown up on the Donetsk front?
It seems to me that the whole concept of a “Ukrainian defense” should have disappeared when Russia blew up that Patriot missile battery.
But okay.