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Ukraine: military situation update with maps, August 30, 2022
(’Orc’ is associated with the various hoards of 13th century Mongol invaders, as well as LOTR evil villains)

War in Ukraine
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP2QApi8G2TKc8NZmeDWSUg/videos

Artillery (key to success in this war), Fuller explanation of Orc military structure, Other Bonus articles - see previous postings in “Attack on Europe” (FR title search).

(Numbered printed material below - Some of the items below may be out of date, and not updated yet)

••denotes transcribed dialogue.

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Summary:
Major Ukrainian offensive on Kherson bridgehead
Day 2 of the offensive

Key areas:
- Izyum bridgehead: no changes
- North Donbass area: no changes
- Donetsk West: no changes.
- Kherson bridgehead:
the offensive is not going as planned;
Ukrainian troops are close to success.
Situation is literally can go either way
Russian forces are stretched to the max and have suffered heavy losses on Day 1.

1. Kharkiv: No changes.
••North: Intensity of Artillery fire has increased a bit.
••Unsuccessful small scale attack to create a bigger buffer.

2. Izyum bridgehead: No changes.
••UA small attack repulsed.

3. North Donbass: No changes.

4. West of Donetsk: No changes.
••Mostly artillery & small probing attacks

5. Vugledar - Velyka Novosilka, Gulyapole: No changes.

6. Kherson bridgehead:
••First of all we would like to note that Russian command has brought in 98th Airborne Division (AD) and 45th Special Forces Brigade (sfB). We don’t know exactly when they came there, it’s probably relatively recent situation. Previously, we mentioned that 45th sfB is the best in the Russian army. We don’t know why how, but it suffered heavy losses when they tried to capture military airports near Kyiv. Nevertheless, it’s back in action.

A similar situation with 98th AD also was attacking Kyiv from west and suffered losses, but now they back on the front line. Their capabilities: the importance of these units are they both have a strong fighting spirit; if we compare to regular mechanized brigades, they they definitely stand out in their spirit.

Relative to just regular infantry division like 150th D, they are definitely much, much better, much stronger. The weakness of these units is they lack heavy equipment, for example in terms of artillery, airborne divisions have 122mm cannons: D-30 2A18 howitzer and 120mm mortars - that’s pretty much it.

They don’t even have 152mm howitzers, so they have to rely on other standalone units or just fight with what they have. Then they also don’t have heavy armor, so they need to rely on some attached tank units or things like that. That’s their weak side.

Yesterday, the first day of attacks the area between Mykolaiv and Kherson is essentially stable. Nothing really happening there.

The main action is happening in two places at this point: one is here area near Sukhistawak and near Vyoskopillya.

First let’s look what’s going on here between Mykolaiv and Kherson. Then we’re gonna go north east. The area near Sneharivka, this is where the front line is. If you remember Russian troops attacked here, and they did not succeed. This is more or less where the front line is it was more or less stable. The front line hasn’t really changed much more or less more or less the same no earth shattering changes here.

Ukrainian troops managed to hold on; we don’t know exact how the front line goes at this point here. Its like a step, which is very flat: just agricultural fields or simply grass. There is not much to dig in really quickly or you’re going to be dislodged from whatever area you have.

It remains to be seen if Ukrainian troops have enough time to really dig in here, but the whole point is actually wasn’t to dig in, the point was to attack towards Bruskinski and then along this road T-2207 then to Novakova.

From that perspective it’s very clear that the initial offensive got bogged down there. Russian sources say Russian troops suffered heavy losses as well, and probably even heavier then the first day of the war. They suffered pretty heavy losses; there is more details on how Ukraine managed to breakthrough here and there were screening troops from Donetsk.

These are troops from Ukraine occupied territories in Donetsk; most of them are forced conscripts at this point because those who were who were collaborators with Russian occupational administration, they were on the front line from the very first day. Russian command used them there that used those troops very roughly, destroying them in the frontal attacks; most of those motivated people at this point gone and dead.

Mostly now forced conscripts here and that’s why Ukrainian troops managed to breakthrough them because they are not motivated. They, at the first sign of potential attack, run away, and so this is what’s what happened there.

This is how this breach was made in the first place, so that is the situation here.The point is that Russian troops are stretched to their maximum at this point, and the more important point is that they cannot really bring new reinforcements because the bridges are more or less blocked. That’s long-term problem for for the Russian side.

From Ukrainian side, it’s also stretched, however, it has reserves. It looks like the UA 128th B was transferred here or portion of it. We don’t know how much of it, but it was transferred here. It’s also participating in this offensive. What’s happening is, it feels like the Ukrainian command still has resources to continue this offensive.

This is a situation when it’s like first day when you have the heaviest losses; in second day you may still have heavier losses, but if you continue pushing this might be like the floodgates can open.

We’re in this situation so probably tomorrow and the following day, we’ll be just deciding and critical it’s either Ukrainian forces will open this flood gates and manage to achieve the whole big objective or it will get completely stalled.

At this point it’s gonna really depend on the motivation and fighting experience, spirit of the troops because, as we said Russian side put everything they can at this point in terms of infantry and heavy equipment. They can’t really bring much they can only support with with attack helicopters.

They’re not really working directly at Ukrainian targets because there is a lot of anti-air manpads, rockets right now with Ukrainian troops. So Russian helicopters and ground attack airplanes are staying far, far away, shooting unguided missiles. It’s shooting in the dark and not doing their job for the most part.

The long-term situation for Russian troops is bad, also from a perspective that they cannot bring enough of their ammunition at this point. Ukrainian command was successful at hitting several Russian ammunition depots here near Novakova in this whole area.

It’s also deprived whatever Russian troops had at their disposal here, they having less of it. That’s why we’re saying the situation is very stretched to the maximum for the Russian side ,and somewhat to the maximum for Ukrainian side.

But it does feel that Ukrainian side has a little bit more resources or reserves to throw into the battle to force the situation into their favor. Nevertheless, even if this offensive doesn’t go beyond this point, Russian troops lost their initiative here.

They are for the first time in this whole Ukrainian-Russian war, the Russian troops really lost initiative, and on defensive, and fighting for their survival. That’s a key importance and significance of what’s going on right now.

Obviously this is largely due to the fact that these bridges are more or less destroyed, and they’re only barely usable; so the supply of Russian troops here will dwindle to a small fraction of what is needed.

Let’s actually look now at the situation near T-2207; it remains stable. Ukrainian troops advanced a little bit here from the south and continuing blocking Russian troops there making a fire pocket or whatever you call it. You can still cross through but it’s going to be under Ukrainian fire, and you cannot really bring reinforcements or much ammo.

This situation still is totally stretched for both sides. Ukrainian side is also suffering losses; they look like more like a normal losses for the offensive. You definitely gonna have significant losses on the first and second day of the offensive; this is accepted as normal.

The only question is at this point is motivation on both sides and here in this area this is being defended by the 45th sfB and 331st Regiment of 98th AD.

That’s why it’s still holding on, if it were other units such as 126th B or 205th B were in this this area, it would have folded a long time ago. That’s why we’re saying that these units are important in terms of their strong motivation in fighting spirit, relative to regular Russian army troops such as this 126th B; they are part of the 20th D.

You can think that this whole bridgehead is really holding on on the backbone of the 7th AD, which has actually 3 regiments: it’s actually a large unit, unusually large for typical Russian airborne division: 217th, 331st, 108th.

At this point, the Russian command brought in 98AD and 45th sfB - just for reminders sfB is relatively small, could be a low from 300 to 1700 people - we don’t know for sure. The number of soldiers here is ballpark, probably somewhere in the middle, given that they also suffered losses in the past.

This is again a situation that’s on edge for both sides, but the the key point take away from this, even if Ukrainian side will not finish what it started right now and gets stalled, it will be just a temporary break for the final solution on Kherson bridgehead. Because the bridges are burned, barely usable, the ferry is being attacked and destroyed, as well.

The ability to resupply is small and there are breaches in Russian defensive lines, especially near s Sukhistawak and so on. Russian troops are going to get exhausted.

At the same time Ukrainian side has advantage in terms of manpower so it’s not gonna whatever losses there are they can refill them relatively easy relative to the Russian side.

Again a question of time and as we mentioned this months ago, or more maybe in months and a half, that this is going to be like death by thousand cuts of this Russian group that’s on the Kherson bridgehead. It may take another month before it’s going to be really finished, maybe it’s going to get resolved in a day or two as well, so really hard to predict how it’s going to go right now