October 4 — Day 223 — A soldier’s general, Double offensives, Mobilization madness
This is I think the first day of the war, where the Russian line was cracking in two totally different sectors.
Also, the last 48 hours saw a record count of Russian Federation (RF) tanks destroyed in a day.
This is not to say the RF can’t yet cobble together a defense. But the one that they have, right now, is clearly failing.
I’ll start off with an image that might be a bit boring to some: another Ukrainian drives off another captured Russian tank. The thing is, the tank is a latest-model T-90, and the driver is no less than (Colonel/Brigadier General?) Pavel Fedosenko, commander of 92nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade. As I have mentioned more than once, in my view the 92nd is one of the most effective combat outfits in the entire UAF.
Why? At minimum, and this is documented, because over seven months the 92nd has repeatedly managed to get somewhere, fight the Russians, win, and then go somewhere else, and repeat the process. Almost certainly the brigade has an excellent staff and a command climate that creates junior commanders, and NCOs, who believe their professionalism wins battles and saves lives. No doubt Fedosenko had a lot to do with that. I think an indicator is, how many brigade commanders in any other army, besides the UAF, could sit down in a captured tank and drive it?
The fighting
In general, always with the qualification things still could reverse, the Ukrainians are just winning. The evidence on the ground shows it, the media noise supports it, the Russian military bloggers are falling all over themselves to confirm it, and even Russian official state propaganda is complaining about all this firepower and manpower the UAF is unfairly deploying against Russia’s defenders of land the Kremlin stole from Ukraine. But the simplest indicator is yesterday’s kill claim count from Ukraine’s Army General Staff: 44 RF tanks destroyed or captured in a 24-hour period (including, it appear’s, General Fedosenko’s T-90.)
In the northern Kharkiv sector, according to multiple reports, the UAF has pushed east and south from Kupyansk and north-east from Lyman, and over the last 48 hours has advanced 8–10 km. a day. Already, the RF emergency defensive line in this sector, theoretically to be built on the Zherebets River, is compromised. At this pace, the UAF will be in a position to assault the next largish town/logistics hub in the area, Sviatove, by the end of the week. It’s already well within reach of most UAF artillery.
Pursuant to that, the RF regional command yesterday told civilians in Sviatove they had 72 hours to evacuate. (No help from the occupation authorities, rent your own moving truck). The most recent villages liberated by the UAF in this sector was Boguslavska, on the east shore of the Oskil’ reservoir. As before, the UAF appear to be systematic rather than blitzkrieg as they recover ground. Map of doing in Kharkiv sector attached.
Serhiy Haidai, head of the Luhansk regional defense command, said RF units in the Kharkiv-Luhansk sector have gone over to total defense and abandoned any attempt to gain ground, their only goal is to hold it.
In the southern Kherson sector, UAF units appeared to be advancing as well, with RF military bloggers frequently claiming RF defenses in this area had failed completely. Villages liberated recently included Velyka Oleksandrivka and Satrosilliya.
At Davydiv Brid, in the center of the Kherson sector, battles appear still to be continuing, with UAF mechanized and armor units, backed by what multiple sources are calling a lot of artillery, are shooting it out with RF paratroopers hanging on to the southern outskirts of the town. Today from the UAF side a video appeared with some grinning UAF Marines declaring they had just put up a flag on the TV tower at Davydiv Brid and the town is liberated, and a video from Kyryll Stremousov, head of the Kherson region occupation authority, telling the camera no, Davydiv Brid is still controlled by Russia and any claims otherwise are lies. This in turn is rubbished by Kremlin critic and Russian nationalist Igor Girkin, who says Moscow lost Davydiv Brid yesterday and that precious little stands between the UAF and capture of the towns Nova Kakhovka and Berislav.
Both videos attached so you can decide whom to believe. I personally think, based on fragmentary evidence, the fighting is ongoing but the UAF is getting the upper hand. Map of doings in the Kherson sector attached. Late note: rumors started flying on Tuesday evening that Stremeusov had fled Kherson. Very late reports, unconfirmed, said the RF defenses had collapse completely and the new RF plan was to try and hold bridgeheads around riverside towns like Nova Kakhovka. That’s not confirmed.
Aside from a blown bridge and small infantry defenses (some RF gripe bloggers are talking about 10–20 men) in the village Duchany, more and more it is looking like the right bank of the Dnipr is being abandoned by the Russians, as per rumors above. I’m not alone, there are posters out there (attached) who are reporting the RF is holding 20 km sectors with weak battalions, which works out, in the southern sector, to a couple of dozen fighting men per village.
Finally for the fighting, the HIMARS are still at it, and now they’re even making RF national news which, curiously, is performing the role of UAF battle damage assessment with some precision and skill. The state-run RIA Novosti reported this evening: “Ukrainian military used HIMARS to hit the Antonovsky Bridge in Kherson, three missiles hit the bridge and three hit anti-aircraft systems.” [“3 hit the bridge, 3 downed by the air defense” according to some commenters]
With the Russian official media now confirming UAF missile strikes, it’s almost as if the UAF doesn’t need all those NSA satellites. RIA Novosti screen grab attached.
Pointing fingers
With the RF line currently seeming like it’s coming apart at the seams at multiple locations, the RF military blogosphere has gone into overdrive demanding heads of irresponsible officials and officers responsible for the debacle. They admit the UAF has good equipment but they still seem to think a Russian soldier will beat a Ukrainian one on anything like roughly par material terms. But mostly, the party line is “Russian soldiers are heroes — Russian officers/managers betray heroes through incompetence and greed”.
At the top of the ant heap, according to multiple sources including the Institute for the Study of War Putin replaced Colonel-General Alexander Zhuravlev with Lieutenant-General Roman Berdnikov as commander of the Western Military District. So we now know who’s fault the Kharkiv debacle is supposed to be. Portraits attached so you can see what a huge difference there is between the two.
Funniest RF military blog gripe so far: “What, guys, should I start learning Ukrainian?” (Image)
Stuff for Ukraine
More images and reports are piling up that the UAF is taking more prisoners and capturing more equipment, at a faster pace, than any other time in the war. For instance, photos popped up of 5–6 Russian guided howitzer shells at 30K a shot falling into UAF hands. Image. Or a bunch of LPR POWs — already the UAF is gathering in groups not individuals.
As to why LPR fighters seem to get taken POW frequently, besides the fact that many of them are conscripted civilians, it seems fairly clear that it is RF military policy to sacrifice Ukrainian citizens to fight the UAF wherever possible, in order to reduced RF citizen casualties. This cannot be good for morale.
Speaking of which, in the attached video, members of an LPR battalion that was on the front lines at the outset of the Kharkiv offensive complain they were left out to be sacrificed repeatedly by RF commanders. After fighting for seven months they are at less than 30 percent strength and, after escaping from Lyman, drove all the way back to their base in Schastie — where RF authorities refused to let them onto the premises. They were camping in a field in front of the base and being fed and tended to by wives and relatives, and there were plenty of fighters who had little good to say about their chain of command.
Russian Mobilization:
Speaking of not helpful for morale, attached is a video from the town Elan’, Sverdlovsk region, Russia, where hundreds of recently-mobilized reservists are being prepared to fight in Ukraine…wait for it…by being marched around and practicing close order drill.
Or there is this report from the military village Alabino, outside Moscow, where a brawl broke out between Russian contract soldiers and reservists arriving at the base. Apparently the contract soldiers wanted to steal phones and other personal equipment from the reservists. Twenty men reportedly hospitalized. Orignal source is a news platform called Baza.
