Current War Situation in Ukraine
Ukrainian forces are continuing attempts to push back russian troops around Kherson. The occupiers have failed to take new Ukrainian settlements under control in the past two weeks. In 6 months russia, exceeding Ukraine in numbers of soldiers and numbers of artillery and military equipment, has made little progress. The reason is that they lack motivation, order, and supply. Ukrainians instead are fighting for their own land.
After the russians retreated from the north of Ukraine, they sent most of their military forces to the Donbas region. They have succeeded (except for the town of Pisky) in taking all the Luhansk oblast. Now their troops are fighting to keep Donetsk.
Nevertheless, russia’s swift advance in the Donbas region has slowed down and Donetsk is still most of Ukrainian territory. However, they are shelling the eastern part of Kramatorsk city all the time.
Russians are launching an attack to recapture Kherson. This is a very important city because the majority of connections to the Crimean peninsula comes through the Kherson oblast (including the electricity, water supply, railroads, and car roads). Therefore it is very important to hold these positions for russians, but neither the people in the city support them, nor they have the ability to do that. Reason number one is geographical position. Kherson city is separated from the rest of the russian army by the Dnieper river. There are two bridges there: Antonivskyi bridge and Kahovskiy bridge. It is important to destroy the logistical support of the russians not to allow them to accumulate their forces, ammunition, and weapons. On August 22 the Ukrainian military struck the Antonivskyi bridge. The column of occupiers’ equipment with ammunition was moving over the bridge at that time. The russian authorities said that the workers of the repair team suffered (about 15 people). They were working on the bridge at the moment of the hit. On August 25 the Ukrainian military attacked the Kakhovskyi bridge and the air defense systems. Also that day there was one more strike at the Antonivskiy bridge.
As a result, russians do not have a supply of weapons, food, and all the things they need to support the army, which is quite huge there. They are trying to build temporary bridges, but none of them can function in the way they need to. In order to destroy those bridges, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have used HIMARS systems a number of times. Currently, these bridges are not safe to pass even by cars, not to say heavy military equipment.
Armed Forces of Ukraine liquidated many weapons warehouses and airbases. They effectively use Western artillery. Belbek military airfield near Sevastopol, Crimea, was destroyed on 18 August. It was the largest airbase on the peninsula. Near Belgorod oblast (russia) the ammunition depot of the 237th tank regiment has been blown up on 18 of August.
Unfortunately, a number of Ukrainian cities and their outskirts (especially eastern and southern) are under constant shelling. One of the most terrible shellings took place on August 17 in Kharkiv city. A cultural center, a dormitory, and a tram depot were damaged. As a result, 21 people died, including a 13-year-old child. 42 people were injured.
On the 24 of August Ukraine marked its Day of Independence and the six-month anniversary of russia’s full-scale invasion. On that day Ukrainians were expecting a lot of attacks and shellings from the russian side according to the fact that putin like symbolic dates. On Independence Day, the Russian army shelled 58 settlements. The air raid alarm sounded 189 times during the day.
On Independence Day the occupiers fired at the Chaplyne railway station (Dnipropetrovsk oblast). 25 people died. A private house in Chapline was also destroyed. 3 people (woman and 2 children) were under the rubble.
On this day, Ukraine held an unusual “russian military parade” in the center of Ukrainian Kyiv. According to the facts, russians were expecting to do their parade in the center of Kyiv in February-March with their equipment and soldiers after the victory over Ukraine. Instead, six months later we have such a parade of “equipment” of the second army in the world in the center of our country.
