WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Ukraine prepares 'biggest blow' as it claims recapture of eight villages from Russia
Ukraine said on Monday it had driven Russian forces out of an eighth village in its two-week-old counteroffensive and a defence official vowed Kyiv's "biggest blow" lay ahead despite tough resistance from Moscow's troops.
Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said Ukrainian forces had retaken Piatykhatky, a settlement on a heavily fortified part of the front line near the most direct route to the country's Azov Sea coast.
This was part of an advance by Kyiv of up to seven km (4.3 miles) into Russian lines in two weeks, capturing 113 square km (44 square miles) of land.
"The enemy will not easily give up their positions, and we must prepare ourselves for a tough duel," Maliar said on the Telegram messaging app. The military "are moving as they should have been moving. And the biggest blow is yet to come."
She said the fiercest fighting was in the east and south of Ukraine. Separately, she said Ukraine's military was preventing a Russian advance in the east where it concentrated its units, including air assault troops.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address that Kyiv's military was moving forward in some sectors and defending against intensified attacks in others. But the net outcome was favourable for Ukraine, he said.
"We have no lost positions, only liberated ones. And they have only losses," he said.
Two slick videos released on Telegram by the Ukrainian armed forces showed what they said were attacks and advances by their forces in recapturing the village of Piatykhatky, including several strikes on Russian positions and a convoy. The video shows thick smoke rising from the area. Columns of Ukrainian armoured vehicles are seen advancing down a country road.
The video concluded with soldiers of the 128th separate assault brigade standing in front of a colonnaded building with Ukrainian flags and saying they have liberated the village.
Reuters was able to confirm the location of the video but could not independently verify the date.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces wrote on Facebook that anti-aircraft units had shot down four cruise missiles and four Iranian-made drones in the last 24 hours.
It said Russia had shelled more than a dozen towns and villages in the Zaporizhzhia region, including Piatykhatky.
Reuters could not verify the battlefield claims.
INCREMENTAL GAINS
The reported capture of the villages reflects the incremental nature of the gains so far for Ukraine along lines Moscow has spent months strengthening.
Piatykhatky is significant, however, as it lies around 90 km from the coast.
Zelenskiy said he would continue talks with Western allies to get weapons and ammunition to them as soon as possible.
Russia, hoping to dent Western resolve, said it had repelled numerous assaults and it released a video showing what its troops say is captured Western equipment, in this case a French-made tank reportedly seized in the eastern Donetsk region. It did not mention Piatykhatky.
Ukraine has acknowledged attacks along several parts of the 1,000-km-long front line in its long-anticipated counteroffensive to retake the 18% of its territory occupied by Russia, but carefully controls information for security reasons. Analysts say the main phase of the counteroffensive is yet to begin.
Both sides appear to have taken heavy losses in recent fighting and both say the other side's are greater.
Ukraine has prepared an array of new military units for the counteroffensive, while its established brigades weathered Russia's winter offensive in the east.
Separately, Ukraine Deputy Minister for Strategic Industries Sergiy Boyev told Reuters at the Paris Airshow on Monday that Ukraine is in talks with Western arms manufacturers to boost output of weapons, including drones, and possibly even in Ukraine.
The conflict has killed thousands of civilians, destroyed towns and cities and driven millions of people from their homes while exacerbating global inflation and reshaping security arrangements.
Russia says it invaded Ukraine to "denazify" it, an argument Ukraine and its Western allies call a pretext for a land grab.
REDEPLOYMENT?
Officials from two NATO member states said Moscow was redeploying some of its forces as it seeks to predict where Ukraine will strike.
British and Estonian intelligence officials said that Russia had been moving some forces east along the front line from areas south of the Dnipro river flooded by the destruction of the huge Kakhovka hydroelectric dam on June 6.
Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for the unleashing of the vast reservoir. Flooding has destroyed homes and farmland along both sides of the front line in Kherson region. The death toll has risen to 52, with more than 11,000 people evacuated.
** Russia claims to have remotely detonated tank laden with explosives, in apparent new tactic
Russia’s Ministry of Defense has claimed that a Ukrainian stronghold was destroyed by a remotely-controlled tank packed with a huge amount of explosives, in what appears to be a new battlefield tactic.
In a post on its Telegram channel at the weekend, the ministry said that “about 3.5 tons of TNT and 5 FAB-100 bombs” were packed into the tank. FAB-100 bombs normally carry a 100-kilogram (220-pound) payload.
In a video shared by the ministry on Saturday, a Russian tank commander, callsign “Bernaul,” said he was assigned with the task of setting up the tank and executing the attack.
“About 300 meters (984 feet) away from the enemy, the tank operator put the vehicle on manual gas, directing it [to the enemy’s] direction. He jumped out and went to the rear. I stayed behind to observe, and after the vehicle approached the enemy’s positions, I detonated it by radio control,” the commander said.
“The explosion was very serious, there were a lot of explosives … as a result, according to radio intercept data, the enemy suffered significant losses,” he added.
Drone video shows the tank static after apparently hitting a mine close to Ukrainian lines. There is then a huge explosion, but it’s unclear why. A moment before the tank explodes, there appears to be a flash coming from Ukrainian positions, which may have been an attempt to destroy the tank.
On Sunday, a prominent Russian war blogger, “Voennyi Osvedomitel,” shared a video from the pro-Russia “Romanov” channel of drone footage that shows the tank detonating. Osvedomitel said the tank hit a mine before reaching its target.
“Sending an unmanned kamikaze tank filled with 6 tons of TNT to Ukrainian positions in Mariinka. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it, blown up by a mine,” he wrote.
It’s not possible to geolocate the incident but the Mariinka area of Donetsk has seen heavy fighting since the Russian invasion began.
CNN has reached out to Ukrainian authorities about the incident.
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
West sent Ukraine broken weapons – NYT
Weapons provided to Ukraine by the US and its allies have either required fixing or had to be cannibalized for parts, the New York Times reported on Monday. Kiev has also complained that equipment worth hundreds of millions of dollars and bought on contract has not yet been delivered.
As proof, the NYT cited documents provided by Ukrainian officials on condition of anonymity, who are frustrated with the West saying they had enough weapons for an offensive against Russia. The Ukrainian attack, which began earlier this month, has resulted in heavy losses of men and equipment without much to show for it.
Up to 30% of Ukraine’s arsenal is undergoing repairs at any given time, according to the outlet, while a lot of Western equipment arrives “in poor or unusable condition.”
One case in point involved 33 American M109 howitzers donated by Italy. According to Rome, they had been decommissioned years ago, but Ukraine asked for them to be refurbished for use. An American contractor was paid $19.8 million to do the repairs. In January, they delivered 13 of the guns, which arrived “not suitable for combat missions,” according to one Ukrainian document.
“The American company, offering its services, had no prior intention to fulfill its obligations,” Ukraine’s defense procurement director Vladimir Pikuzo complained to the Pentagon in a February 3 letter.
“Every single one of them worked when we delivered them,” Matthew Herring, CEO of the Tampa-based Ultra Defense Corporation, told the Times, blaming Ukrainians for not properly maintaining the self-propelled guns.
There were problems with US Army-supplied equipment as well, according to a report by the Pentagon’s inspector general. Last summer, an Army unit at Kuwait’s Camp Arifjan was ordered to send 29 Humvees to Ukraine, but only three were fit for combat. Contractors worked through late August to repair “transmissions, dead batteries, fluid leaks, broken lights, door latches and seatbelts.” When the cars arrived in Poland, however, 25 of them had “rotten” tires, and it took another month to find enough replacements.
The same unit was supposed to send six of the towed M777 howitzers to Ukraine in March 2022, but they turned out to need “extensive maintenance” first. It took three months to have them repaired and shipped to Poland, but they then needed further repairs, as they were judged “non-mission capable.”
As of December 2022, the Ukrainian government had contracted for more than $800 million of weapons and supplies that “went completely or partly unfulfilled,”the Times reported, citing government documents. The most valuable of the contracts were between the Defense Ministry in Kiev and state-owned weapons companies serving as independent brokers. As of this spring, contracts worth “hundreds of millions of dollars” were still outstanding, however.
** NATO arsenals ‘empty’ – Stoltenberg
NATO needs a “more robust” industry in order to refill the stocks of weaponry and ammunition emptied by a year of supplying Kiev, the bloc’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday, at an industrial conference in Germany.
The US-led military bloc “must continue to support Ukraine” as it has done since 2014, Stoltenberg insisted at the Day of Industry in Berlin, hosted by the Federation of German Industries (BDI).
“We also need a more robust defense industry,” the secretary general argued. “Our weapons and ammunition stocks are depleted and need to be replenished. Not just in Germany, but in many countries across NATO.”
He added that he met with representatives of the military industry last week and discussed how best to ramp up production and streamline supply chains, adding that this was “key to sustain our support for Ukraine.”
Stoltenberg also repeated his argument that only a Ukrainian victory on the battlefield can result in a just and lasting peace. Kiev’s forces had attempted a large-scale offensive on the southern front over the past week, with heavy losses in manpower, as well as in weaponry provided by the West.
The US and its allies have sent over $100 billion worth of weapons, equipment and ammunition to Kiev in the last year, after the conflict escalated. They insist this does not actually make them a party to the hostilities with Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused the West of direct involvement, not just with the weapons deliveries but also by training Ukrainian troops in the UK, Germany, Italy and elsewhere.
Kiev has complained that a lot of the weapons coming in are in such poor condition they have to be cannibalized for parts. At least a third of Ukraine’s military potential is undergoing repairs at any given time, according to the New York Times.
Reuters/CNN
