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A Ukrainian soldier wounded during early fighting in the new offensive in the Kherson region is cared for at a medical facility in southern Ukraine. Ukrainian forces are pushing to retake territory occupied by Russia. (Photo for The Washington Post)
“They used everything on us,” said Denys, a 33-year-old Ukrainian soldier whose unit fell back from a Russian-held village after a lengthy barrage of cluster bombs, phosphorous munitions and mortars. “Who can survive an attack for five hours like that?” he said.
Denys and eight other Ukrainian soldiers from seven different units provided rare descriptions of the Kherson counteroffensive in the south, the most ambitious military operation by Kyiv since the expulsion of Russian forces at the perimeter of the capital in the spring. As in the battle for Kyiv, Ukraine’s success is hardly assured and the soldiers’ accounts signaled that a long fight, and many more casualties, lie ahead.
“We lost five people for every one they did,” said Ihor, a 30-year-old platoon commander who injured his back when the tank he was riding in crashed into a ditch.
Ihor had no military experience before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. He made a living selling animal feed to pig and cow farms. His replacement as platoon commander also has no previous military experience, he said.
The soldiers were interviewed on gurneys and in wheelchairs as they recovered from injuries sustained in the offensive. Some spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid disciplinary action. Others, like Denys and Ihor, agreed to reveal only their first names. But most spoke plainly about the disadvantages they faced.
Russia’s Orlan drones exposed Ukrainian positions from more than a kilometer above their heads, they said, an altitude that meant they never heard the buzz of the aircraft tracking their movements.
Russian tanks emerged from newly built cement fortifications to blast infantry with large-caliber artillery, the wounded Ukrainian soldiers said. The vehicles would then shrink back beneath the concrete shelters, shielded from mortar and rocket fire.
Counter-battery radar systems automatically detected and located Ukrainians who were targeting the Russians with projectiles, unleashing a barrage of artillery fire in response.
Russian hacking tools hijacked the drones of Ukrainian operators, who saw their aircraft drift away helplessly behind enemy lines.
Ukraine has discouraged coverage of the offensive, resulting in an information lag on a potentially pivotal inflection point in the nearly seven-month conflict.
When Ihor fired on Russian soldiers with his Kalashnikov rifle this week, he said, it was his first time shooting at a human being. “You don’t think about anything,” he said. “You understand, if you don’t do it, they will do it.”
Despite the challenges, Ihor said he is eager to return to the front line as soon as he heals. “My people are there. How can I leave them?” he said.
Other soldiers won’t be returning to the battlefield.
Oleksandr,
a 28-year-old former construction worker, lost his arm in a mortar
blast during the counteroffensive last week. He winced with phantom pain
in his hospital bed on Sunday, saying he felt a sting from the fingers
and hand that were no longer connected to his body.
Oleksandr said the Russian artillery fire was relentless. “They were just hitting us all the time,” he said. “If we fire three mortars, they fire 20 in return.”
The Ukrainian soldiers said they had to carefully ration their use of munitions but even when they did fire, they had trouble hitting targets. “When you give the coordinates, it’s supposed to be accurate, but it’s not,” he said, noting that his equipment dated back to 1989.
Oleksandr had never traveled to Kherson before the war, but he said the goal of expelling Russian invaders was worth sacrificing a limb. “It’s our country,” he said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine’s forces retook two villages in the Kherson region, and one of his aides posted an image of the Ukrainian flag being hoisted over the village of Vysokopillya over the weekend.
“Ukrainian flags are returning to the places where they should be,” Zelensky said in a video address. But it was impossible to gauge what progress Ukrainian forces have made in their push to expel the Russian invaders from Kherson.
The region, which was captured by Russia earlier in the war, forms a crucial part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s coveted “land bridge” to Crimea, the peninsula that Russia invaded and annexed in violation of international law in 2014.
Russian electronic warfare also posed a constant threat. Soldiers described ending their shifts and turning on their phones to call or text family members — a decision that immediately drew Russian artillery fire.
“When we turn on mobile phones or radio, they can recognize our presence immediately,” said Denys. “And then the shooting starts.”
Despite the ban on media visits to the front line, there were signs that Russia’s grip on Kherson might be loosening.
In a statement on Monday, a Kremlin-backed occupation authority said that plans for a staged referendum in the Kherson region, a precursor to Russian annexation, were put on hold due to security issues. The Russian statement was later walked back, but it gave the Ukrainians optimism and suggested that, at the least, the counteroffensive was causing some disarray for the Russians.
Has Putin Has Pushed Europe Into Economic Depression, Hyperrinflation and Currency Collapse?
Though it was entirely predictable and indeed had been expected for some time, the news over the weekend that the Nord Stream 1 pipeline which feeds gas from Russia to northern Europe via The Baltic route had been shut down completely by The Kremlin in retaliation for the continued financial and military support given by NATO and EU member states to Ukraine in the conflict with Russia. The European Commission, governing body of the EU, immediately put the community on something close to a war footing, ...
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Is Russia Selling Its Oil To The World Through An Obscure Egyptian Port?
As this blog predicted when NATO and EU member states shot themselves in the foot by reacting to Russia's invasion of Ukraine with sanctions that prevented Russia from selling oil, gas and vital raw materials to the countries that needed them most, the NATO and EU member states, the Russians have had no problems finding alternative customers for their gas and oil and no problem getting oil into the world's commodity markets through the back door.
As the war in Ukraine grinds on and Russia steps up its economic war against the west and in particular The European Union, claims made recently by the idiotically 'woke' leaders of Europe's main economic and military powers that the West has a once-in-a–generation chance to severely weaken Russia’s capabilities, both militarily and geopolitically, look increasingly hollow. Putin's critics have cited 'Western unity' as one of the main reasons why Russia will be economically destroyed and politically humiliated when the Ukraine's military finally claim victory.
Are US Supplied Long Range Missiles Really Winning The War For Ukraine?
Since very soon after the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine western powers, USA, UK, EU and NATO have been doing everything possible to prolong and escalate the war. The latest move is to provide the Ukrainian military with long range HIMARS missile. Mainstream media are claiming this has tilted the balance in Ukraine's favour. But for what? To prolong the slaughter? ...
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"Our Country Is Facing The Biggest Crisis The Crisis We Ever Had": German Employers' Association Warns Over Russian Gas Cut
With the Nord Stream 1 pipeline closed for maintenance, with the possibility that President Putin will not allow it to reopen at the end of the scheduled 10 days downtime in retaliation for the EU's continued support or Ukraine in their conflict with Russia, Germany is facing an unprecedented crisis that could erase the prosperity Germans have grown accustomed to, warned Rainer Dulger, head of the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations.
European Union Is Again Close To A Meltdown As Eurozone Economy Collapses
Once more we return to the political instability and economic fragility of the European Union as the conflict in Ukraine combined with loonytoons Climate Change mitigation policies, the failure of 'sustainables' to meet ever increasing demand for electricity, fod shortages and rampant price inflation put economic and social pressure on governments of member states ...
Russian Long Range Missile Test Fuels Nuclear War Fears As NATO Pushed Ukraine To Escalate Conflict
Russia tested its latest intercontinental ballistic missile yeserday, the Satan II has a range of 10,000 miles and can devastate an area of 250,000 square kilometers according to military experts. Bizarrely commentators in mainsteam and online news services portrayed this as a sign of weakness by Russia, though the same people cheered when Joe (Dementiaman) Biden threratened a nuclear response if Russia crossed his 'red lines' in Ukraine ...
Europe's biggest economy would suffer a 6.5pc contraction if Russian energy is suspended, experts warn
Even though the sanctions already imposed on Russia in respondse to the invasion of Ukraine are hitting the nations that imposed then harder that their intended target, the EU is preparing to committ economic suicide in an orgy of virtue signalling ...
Sanctions have failed, the Russian rouble is stronger than before the war
Looking at the financial data earlier today I noticed that the Russian rouble is now worth more against the US dollar than it was before conflict broke out in Ukraine. On the 22nd of February this year, one US dollar would exchange for
just over 79 rubles. As of the time of writing, it is now 78 ...
Putin, Macron To Hold Urgent Talks To Halt Military Escalation In Ukraine
Even though the leaders of Ukraine itself are talking down the threat of war with Russia over the breakaway region of Donbas, America and Britain are still beating the war drums and demonising Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Russia insists they have no plans to invade Ukraine and one western leader at least, France's Emmanuel Macron, seems to be listening to messages coming out of the East European trouble spot...
Germany News Mag. Spiegel Asks "Is Vladimir Putin Right?" About NATO Expansion
As the confrontation along the border between Ukraine and Russia has escalated to actual shooting with ethnic Russian rebel separatists in Donbas reporting intensified shelling and initiating a "general mobilization" of military-age males, with Moscow denying they plan to invade and Ukraine's leaders accusing US, UK and French leaders of hysteria for talking up the threat of war, Germany's leading newspaper Spiegel asks the question fundamental to the entire conflict...
While Crazy Joe Biden Claims Victory Over Russia, NATO's Expansin Plans Have Been Derailed By PutinJoe Biden (or his handlers because we all know Joe's mind is gone,) have been trying to spin reports of Russian troops withdrawing from positions close to the Ukraine border as a diplomatic victory for the USA over Putin but in the geopolitical game things are seldom what they seem to be ...
Mainstream media's hyping of the threat to Ukrained posed by Russian aggression is the latest in a long line of attempts to lay blame for western foreign policy disasters at the fet of Russia. In fact had Joe Biden not started to babble about Russian aggression, talking up the threat of conflict, there would be no crisis ...
Is The Russian Threat To Invade Ukraine Real Or A Globalist Conspiracy Theory?
While Joe Biden's handlers in Washington and Boris Johnson In London talk up the threat of war should Russia invade Ukraine as they claim Moscow is preparing to do,Ukrainian leaders are dismissive, accusing the west of ramping up hysteria in a bid to divert attention from oither problems ... Continue reading >>>
As the COVID narrative crumbles under the weight of evidence that the vaccines do not work, masks are useless and lockdowns kill more than they save a new scaremongering narrative - or a revamped old one - is emerging as the threat of war with russia is the latest fear and panic vehicle to scare the people into compliance with tyranny.
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We The Good Guys Versus They The Bad Guys Reporting Does Not Make Sense For The Ukraine Crisis
Mainstream media reporting of the conflict in Ukraine has disappointed. Perhaps I was naive to suppose that lessons might have been learned from the hits their print sales and online traffic rates took as a result of their handling the COVID pandemic But instead of focusing on the most obviously newsworthy aspect of the build up to and escalation of the war, Russia’s view of NATO expansion into Ukraine and even further to Georgia and Kazakhstan, news reports have simply demonised Russia and portrayed Ukraine as the good guys.
Oh what a lovely war! Taking Sides In The Ukraine Conflict
I am a First Gulf War veteran and one of my sons, when very young,
asked me which ‘team’ I had been on as if that was a choice for a
British soldier. I was recently asked by one of my not so young
grandsons which ‘team’ I supported in the war between Ukraine and
Russia. Years of online gaming combined with a crumbling state
educational system have led young boys to consider that war really is
just a game.
Boris and Biden Can't Blame Ukraine War For Energy Crisis
Telling voters that the spiralling inflation we are now experiencing, and the effect on living standards might sound like a politiian trying to be honest for once . Or might it be the case that Boris Johnson, never a man known for plain speaking, is preparing us to be told that Russia’s war against Ukraine, rather than the follies of 'net zero' policies and transitioning from fossil fuels to intermittent 'sustainable' energy sources are to blame for price rises that coming down the lione long before the first Russian boot stepped over ~Ukraine's border?
Boris and Biden Can't Blame Ukraine War For Energy Crisis
With typical arrogance and condescension towards the people who elected them Boris Johnson, Joe Biden and their respectiive presstitutes are trying to spin the energy crisis Europe and North America are currently facing as somehow being linked to the conflict in Ukraine and therfore blame is being attactched to Russia and Vladimir Putin. Do they really think we are stupid enough to believe such unmitigated bollocks? ...
Western leaders, desperate to show their own countries they were taking a firm stance on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, were quick to impose economic sanctions ... so quick in fact that they acted before they had though things through. While freezing Russia out of the global finance system they have exacerbated the wests energy crisis, while Russia's retaliatory ban on raw materials (fertiliser) exports will create extra problems on top of those we already had ...
Syria - style Chemical Weapon False Flag Attacks Coming Soon To Ukraine
While mainstream media reports on the current conflict in the all too predictable globalist style of 'Ukraine man good, Russia man bad,' the truth of how we came to the stage of armed conflict in Ukrain that threatens to spill over into a much bigger war, it is worth questioning the role The USA and NATO have played in making Russia's action inevitable ... Continue reading >>>
How Russia Will Overcome Western Economic Warfare Or Take Food Off Our Tables
The US and EU are deluding themselves on the likely efectiveness of Russian sanctions. The end result could be the de-dollarization of the global economy and massive commodity shortages worldwide...
Europe's Depleted Gas Storage Might Not Get Refilled Ahead Of Next Winter
While mainstream news reporting of the conflict in Ukraine continues to pump out a torrent of anri - Russia, pro - war propaganda the catastropic effects of this war that could so easily have been avoided are not mentioned. Well why would warmongering governments admit they have inflicted an energy crisis, food shortages and soaring living costs on their people for no good reason ...
Putin, Macron To Hold Urgent Talks To Halt Military Escalation In Ukraine
Even though the leaders of Ukraine itself are talking down the threat of war with Russia over the breakaway region of Donbas, America and Britain are still beating the war drums and demonising Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Russia insists they have no plans to invade Ukraine and one western leader at least, France's Emmanuel Macron, seems to be listening to messages coming out of the East European trouble spot...
Germany News Mag. Spiegel Asks "Is Vladimir Putin Right About NATO Expansion?"
As the confrontation along the border between Ukraine and Russia has escalated to actual shooting with ethnic Russian rebel separatists in Donbas reporting intensified shelling and initiating a "general mobilization" of military-age males, with Moscow denying they plan to invade and Ukraine's leaders accusing US, UK and French leaders of hysteria for talking up the threat of war, Germany's leading newspaper Spiegel asks the question fundamental to the entire conflict...
While Crazy Joe Biden Claims Victory Over Russia, NATO's Expansin Plans Have Been Derailed By PutinJoe Biden (or his handlers because we all know Joe's mind is gone,) have been trying to spin reports of Russian troops withdrawing from positions close to the Ukraine border as a diplomatic victory for the USA over Putin but in the geopolitical game things are seldom what they seem to be ...
Mainstream media's hyping of the threat to Ukrained posed by Russian aggression is the latest in a long line of attempts to lay blame for western foreign policy disasters at the fet of Russia. In fact had Joe Biden not started to babble about Russian aggression, talking up the threat of conflict, there would be no crisis ...
Is The Russian Threat To Invade Ukraine Real Or A Globalist Conspiracy Theory?
While Joe Biden's handlers in Washington and Boris Johnson In London talk up the threat of war should Russia invade Ukraine as they claim Moscow is preparing to do,Ukrainian leaders are dismissive, accusing the west of ramping up hysteria in a bid to divert attention from oither problems ... Continue reading >>>
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