WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia, Ukraine dispute control over devastated village of Andriivka

Russia and Ukraine on Saturday disputed control of the devastated village of Andriivka near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, as Ukraine ramped up its efforts to inch closer to reassert control over the pivotal city.

Russia's Defence Minister dismissed a Ukrainian claim to have recaptured Andriivka, which Kyiv has portrayed as a stepping stone to the larger city.

The commander of Ukraine's land forces posted a video purporting to show the capture of Andriivka amid a landscape of scorched territory and desolation.

And a military spokesperson said Ukrainian troops were making headway in both the east and south -- the two main theatres of Ukraine's counteroffensive in the 18-month-old war against Russian invaders.

The account of fighting by Russia's Defence Ministry said its troops were still holding at least two key villages south of Bakhmut, known in Russia by its Soviet-era name, Artyomovsk.

"The enemy did not abandon plans to capture the city of Artyomovsk of the Donetsk People's Republic and continued to conduct assault operations ... unsuccessfully trying to oust Russian troops from the population centres of Klishchiivka and Andriivka," the ministry said in its daily briefing.

Andriivka lies south of Bakhmut, also largely ruined. The city was a mainly symbolic prize that Russian forces seized in May after the fiercest and longest battle since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The report said Russian forces had, in the past week, repelled 16 Ukrainian attacks in the sector, with enemy losses at more than 1,700 dead and wounded, along with 16 tanks.

Ukrainian General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of land forces, posted a video on Telegram that he said provided evidence Kyiv's forces were in full control of Andriivka.

The video shows Ukrainian soldiers advancing on empty devastated ground marked by the burned remnants of trees and taking cover in the shattered hulks of buildings reduced to rubble. Another video showed trucks driving at high speed down a deserted road.

DESTROYED BEYOND RECOGNITION

A correspondent for Ukraine's Hromadske radio said the destruction in Andriivka made the village unrecognisable.

"We know that Andriivka is so badly destroyed that soldiers do not even know where to place the pole with the Ukrainian flag," correspondent Yanina Lvutina said on the radio's website.

Ukraine's Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said the Bakhmut sector was the theatre of "the most active fighting".

"Offensive action is continuing south of Bakhmut. Things are hot in Klishchiivka and Kurdiumivka," Maliar said on Telegram, referring to two other villages near the city.

"Near Klishchiivka, as a result of offensive action, our defence forces have had successes."

Ukraine's General Staff on Friday had reported the capture of Andriivka after days of uncertainty. It also reported "partial success" near Klishchiivka.

Prominent Ukrainian military analyst Oleksandr Musiyenko told Ukrainian television that capturing Andriivka would allow the military "to advance from the southern flank in the Bakhmut area, gaining control of the heights."

Reuters was unable to verify the battlefield reports.

Maliar also reported that Russian forces had unsuccessfully tried to push through Ukrainian defences near two villages northwest of Bakhmut.

She said Ukrainian troops were holding their positions near two other cities further south subjected to heavy Russian attacks in recent days - Avdiivka and Maryinka.

In the south, where Ukraine's forces aim to push to the Sea of Azov, Maliar said Kyiv's troops were "inflicting significant losses on the occupiers in terms of men and equipment".

Ukraine hopes to sever a land bridge Russia has created between annexed Crimea and territory it holds in the east.

** Five killed, one wounded in Donetsk, Russian-installed official says

Five civilians were killed and one wounded as a result of intense Ukrainian shelling of the Donetsk region on Saturday, said a Russian-installed official in the eastern region of Ukraine.

The five were killed in the Kirov and Kuibyshevskyi districts and a woman was injured in Svetlodarsk, Denis Pushilin, the Russian-appointed head of the region, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Reuters could not independently verify the information out of Donetsk, which with some other parts of eastern Ukraine has been partly controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014.

There was no immediate comment from Kyiv.

On Saturday, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces reported heavy fighting and partial success of its forces as part of Ukraine's counteroffensive to reclaim land occupied by Russia in its 19-month invasion.

 

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow and Crimea foiled – MOD

Two unmanned aerial vehicles were destroyed en route to Moscow in the early hours of Sunday, while at least half a dozen attempts to strike various targets in the Crimean Peninsula, the Defense Ministry said in a statement. 

“The air defense repelled a drone attack on Moscow over the Istra district west of the city,” Mayor Sergey Sobyanin confirmed on Telegram early Sunday morning, adding that the emergency services were responding to the incident.

The military said that a plane-type UAV was detected and destroyed around 1:45am Moscow time in Istra, while another drone was intercepted over the Domodedovo district several hours later. According to preliminary data, there are no destructions or injuries on the ground, authorities added.

As during previous air raid alerts, Moscow’s three main airports – Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo, and Vnukovo – were briefly shut down as precaution.

Meanwhile, another “attempted Ukrainian terrorist attack was thwarted” in Crimea, with two drones intercepted west of the peninsula around 1:15am local time, according to the Defense Ministry.

Four more drones were intercepted over the Black Sea in the vicinity of Crimea between 1:45am and 2:20am, the military added in another statement.

Ukrainian UAVs have repeatedly targeted the capital and other Russian regions in recent months, with most of them either shot down mid-air or crashing due to signal-jamming.

Kiev has stepped up attacks on Russian territory as its much-touted ground offensive, launched in early June, had failed to yield any significant victories. Several UAVs crashed in Moscow City, the Russian capital’s business and financial hub, without causing any casualties.

** Training and tactics behind Ukraine's counteroffensive failures – FT

The training given by the US and other Western states to Ukrainian troops has not prepared them for their counteroffensive against Russian forces, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing Western analysts and military sources.

So far, the Ukraine has “not achieved the desired decisive breakthrough,” a source told the outlet, adding that some Western officials believe that Kiev has failed to use the opportunities offered by massive Western military aid at a time of “possibly peak political support.”

Some US officials have privately complained that Ukrainian troops “failed during training to master modern operations that combine mechanized infantry, artillery and air defense.” Ukraine’s losses early into the offensive were reportedly “unsustainable,” the sources claimed, amounting to “nearly a fifth of the NATO kit provided for the counteroffensive” in late May and early June alone. Such setbacks forced Kiev to change tactics and go back to an “attritional approach.”

The Ukrainian forces found it “impossible” to follow a NATO doctrine of combined arms warfare that involves coordinated actions by infantry, armor, artillery, and air defense, the paper said, adding that Kiev’s military still struggles to run operations “above the level of company (200 men) or even platoon (20-50).”

According to analysts interviewed by FT, Western training of Ukrainian troops was “too short” and poorly adapted to conditions on the battlefield.

One Ukrainian Special Forces unit commander complained that if he had followed the “bad advice” he’d received from Western trainers, he would “be dead.”

Military analysts Michael Kofman and Rob Lee pointed to “a poor understanding of how Ukraine’s military fights, and of the operating environment writ large, may be leading to false expectations, misplaced advice and unfair criticism in Western official circles,” in a report on the issue published in early September.

US officials, in turn, have questioned Kiev’s decision to expend its more experienced troops on a “futile defense” of the Donbass city of Artemovsk (Bakhmut in Ukrainian), which was captured by Russian forces in May 2023 following a months-long battle.

Russian forces, meanwhile, continue to “learn from their foes” and adapt their tactics, analysts said. In addition, Moscow’s forces still have the edge when it comes to drone warfare. Russian Lancet-3 kamikaze drones represent a “particular menace” as they are capable of autonomously tracking their targets, a capacity Kiev's drones lack.

Under the current circumstances, any Ukrainian success will be “slow-going at best” and will continue to depend on Western allies “increasing production of ammunition and other equipment to sustain an attritional war.”

 

Reuters/RT