Results of week of fighting, puzzles for Russians on where Ukrainian troops will move: military expert Serhiy Zgurets'

Frontline situation

Everyone is waiting for information about what is happening on the Zaporizhzhia front and in the south, but there is little information on this day. Even such an indicator as the number of enemies killed is lower than usual. The General Staff of Ukraine reported that 470 Russian soldiers were killed over the day, which is less than in the previous days of this week.

It can be assumed that Ukrainian forces are regrouping after the difficult but successful actions during the first week of the offensive in the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions. Let me remind you that on June 12, the liberation of 7 settlements was announced. There was also a lot of video from our brigades that carried out these successful actions. It was reported that 90 square kilometers had been taken under control, and that enemy counterattacks had been repelled in certain areas.

According to preliminary conclusions, during this period of hostilities on the Zaporizhzhia front, the Ukrainian Armed Forces conducted offensive actions in several directions: Lobkove, Orikhiv, Velyka Novosilka and Vuhledar, although the latter direction is still being formed. And this is more than 150 kilometers of confrontation with the enemy, with the main length falling in the Orikhiv direction. Once again, it can be assumed that the fighting along the Orikhiv axis at Tokmak is focused on the prospective advance of the Ukrainian Armed Forces towards Melitopol, and then on breaking the land corridor to Crimea, which is still held by Russian troops.

In turn, the movement from Velyka Novosilka may be directed to several sectors, and it is possible that in the future it will move toward Mariupol. But the puzzles of where Ukrainian troops will move, where the main attack will be, will be solved by the enemy, who, after a week of fighting, has already begun to move its tactical reserves and operational reserves from other areas to the contact line. After the terrorist attack of the Russian army - the blowing up of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station - Russians move their units from the Kherson region.

On the Ukrainian side, limited forces have been deployed to carry out these offensive or probing actions. There are battalions and companies from regular brigades that have been fighting before. But when we talk about the newly formed brigades, we can separate the 33rd and 47th brigades, which fought near Mala Tokmachka, where the most difficult confrontation with the enemy took place.

By the way, on June 13, a video was released from the master sergeant of the 47th Detached Mechanized Brigade, Valerii Markus, in which he said that Russian troops suffered more losses than Ukrainian defenders and called for the statements of Russian propaganda not to be included in the Ukrainian information field. He noted that when the Russians said that the losses of the Ukrainian side in this section of the front amounted to 350 soldiers, we had five killed. Markus also noted that during this period the Ukrainian soldiers destroyed 15 enemy tanks and several Solntsepyok vehicles. And we didn't even count the number of infantry fighting vehicles destroyed by Ukrainian defenders. The sergeant says that we are advancing, but the enemy suffers more losses than we do. This is a paradoxical situation.

On June 13, another military aid package was announced from the United States, including Stryker and Bradley, which will be used to compensate for the losses in equipment that was lost during the first period of offensive operations. And this equipment proved to be most effective on the battlefield. However, there are other areas where the enemy is trying to resist, such as the Bakhmut direction. Today, Army Commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said that there is progress in certain areas, but the Russian troops are trying to resist.

Oleksandr Kravtsov, a soldier with the 93rd Detached Mechanized Brigade, said that his brigade has been in the Bakhmut sector since August last year with short breaks of two to three weeks. He sees that the counteroffensive involves units that held the enemy's advance on the northern and southern flanks and then managed to reverse the offensive. The 3rd Assault Brigade is particularly good at this, as its men had a hard time getting into their positions in January this year. Initially, they suffered losses, but now this brigade is the best at developing the offensive near Bakhmut. It was the 3rd Assault Brigade that was able to make significant progress in the canal area, occupy key heights and prepare for the next stage - moving south and attempting to surround Bakhmut.

The Ukrainian serviceman said that today it is more or less calm, although the fighting in this area has been going on for 10 months. Both sides have built quite high engineering fortifications. In fact, some of the fortifications were prepared by Ukrainian defenders when they were defending Bakhmut, and now the enemy is relying on them, so we should not expect instant success, because there is a lot of complex military work going on.

Kravtsov noted that since the new year, Russian pilots have been behaving with extreme caution, which is evident in the reports. Enemy aircraft have become more cautious. The Russians are using guided bombs that will allow them to launch from a greater distance so that enemy aircraft do not reach our air defense posts. We can talk about an increase in the intensity of aviation in the southern direction, and in the area of Bakhmut it comes in waves. When the weather is good, the enemy's aviation is working, when the weather is bad, the aviation is not working.