ARTICLE
Armed with tanks and heavy armor from NATO, Ukraine says it’s about to hit Russian forces with an ‘iron fist’
Business Insider
John Haltiwanger
Apr 28, 2023, 5:35 PM EDThttps://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-almost-ready-counteroffensive-iron-fist-western-weapons-russia-2023-4
-Ukraine is almost ready to launch a long-awaited spring counteroffensive, its defense minister said.
-”We are to a high percentage ready,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Friday.
-Reznikov said Western-supplied weapons would serve as an “iron fist” against Russian forces.
Ukraine’s forces are nearly ready to launch a counteroffensive against the Russian invaders with weapons from the West, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Friday.
“As soon as there is God’s will, the weather and a decision by commanders, we will do it,” Reznikov said during an online briefing, per Reuters. “We are to a high percentage ready.”
Reznikov said that Western-supplied arms would serve as an “iron fist” in this effort.
The day prior, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said that alliance members and their partners had delivered over 98% of the combat vehicles pledged to Kyiv. Stoltenberg said the aid provided to Ukraine included over 1,550 armored vehicles, 230 tanks, and other military hardware, as well as “vast amounts of ammunition.”
“This will put Ukraine in a strong position to continue to retake occupied territory,” Stoltenberg said.
US Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the top commander of US forces in Europe and NATO’s top general, told congressional lawmakers during a House Armed Services committee hearing on Wednesday he is “very confident” that Ukraine has what it needs for a successful counteroffensive. “We’ll continue a pipeline to sustain their operations as well,” he said. The M1 Abrams tanks promised by the US are still to come.
Though Cavoli expressed confidence, recently leaked top secret Pentagon documents that became a major point of controversy in Washington and abroad suggested that the US is not especially optimistic that Ukraine can actually make major gains in a counteroffensive.
While Ukraine’s long-awaited spring counteroffensive is widely expected to start soon, some military analysts contend that it has already begun in small ways, pointing to reported Ukrainian advances across the Dnipro River in the Kherson region.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian people continue to face the deadly consequences of the Russian onslaught, which targets not just the Ukrainian armed forces but also civilians.
Reznikov’s comments on Friday came as Russia launched fresh missile attacks across Ukraine — including in the capital city, Kyiv — that killed at least 25, BBC News reported. Several children were reportedly among those killed in strikes on residential areas.
In the wake of these fatal attacks on Ukrainian cities, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that “Russian terror” could only be defeated “with weapons for Ukraine, the toughest sanctions against the terrorist state, and fair sentences for the killers.”
VIDEO AND COMMENTARY
28 Apr: IT WORKED! Ukrainians PREVENT A MASSIVE BOMBING RAID Reporting from Ukraine
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4-28-2023 11:00 p.m. EDT 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RYf27F5BTQ
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I am Ukrainian. My country has been invaded by Russia. In this video I will tell you what happened on the four hundred and twenty ninth day of the war.
Day 429: April 28
The freshest reports indicate that these actions brought results. A fighter from the 93rd Mechanized Brigade reported that the usage of FAB-500 significantly decreased. He said that it is highly likely due to the increased density of Ukrainian air defense in the region and overall better attention to the sky.
The fighter also alluded to the recent powerful Ukrainian strikes on Russian positons west of the barracks and said that such strikes started to happen quite frequently and cause similar to FAB-500 destruction but to Russians. Such precision strikes successfully complicated Russian logistics in the northern part of Bakhmut and forced them to take time to regroup. Due to the process of regrouping, the pressure from this line was alleviated, and Russians have not gained new ground.
When it comes to the central part, Ukrainians assumed strong positions east of the department of the Engineering Academy and Medical College. Combat footage from this region showed how a Wagner unit attempted to cross Pavlova Novgorodseva Street but was immediately destroyed. A bit east of this location, another combat footage showed how Ukrainian drone operators cooperated with a mortar crew and destroyed another assault unit. They spotted how Russian troops in small numbers accumulated in the building and then conducted a strike.
In the southern part of the region, the situation is the most challenging for Ukrainians. For a long time, this area was the most stable, but the moment things stabilized in the north, they deteriorated along Korsunskogo Street. The main goal of Russian assault units in this region was to establish control over the Industrial College and split Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut into two groups. A fighter from the 93rd Mechanized Brigade reported that Russians devoted an absurdly high number of troops to this operation. He said that over the last day, the control over the collage changed 3 times. The chronology was the following: Russians prepared assault units consisting of at least 20 troops, and sent one assault unit after another until Ukrainians got overwhelmed and retreated; then Ukrainians reduced Russians with artillery and conducted a counterattack, and then the cycle repeated 2 more times. The drone footage showed that due to the intense fights, the college was turned into a barely standing carcass.
As you can see, when it comes to intense street fighting, the front line is always very unstable, and the control over entire residential quarters can go back and forth several times during the day. In the face of such high uncertainty, Ukrainians started destroying possible key Russian positions. Recently, Ukrainian sources published a video of a controlled explosion of a high-rise building on the outer edge of the city. Some sources speculated that these positions were lost, and Ukrainians tried to blow up Wagners. However, the building was empty, and Ukrainians are still controlling these positions, which is confirmed by today’s footage filmed from a vehicle that used the Ivanivske highway to deliver supplies to Bakhmut. The reason why Ukrainians destroyed it is the following. This building does not give fire control over Russian positions because it is blocked by other buildings, so it has no value for Ukrainians apart from being used for storage. However, if by any chance Russians take it, then this building would allow them to establish multiple ATGM positions and destroy absolutely all vehicles moving between Bakhmut and Chasiv Yar. So, Ukrainians blew it up just in case while they continued holding other buildings to control the region.
Ukrainian fighters also made an interesting observation and reported that the number of regular Russian forces has substantially decreased, and 90% of soldiers are from the Wagner Group. A few days ago, the Head of the Wagner forces, Prigozhin, said in an interview that his private military company is losing 5 times as many men as he expected. Today he also said that Wagner Group is on the verge of extinction, and he underscored that he is not being alarmist and that people will soon see for themselves. It looks like the commanders of the regular Russian forces understood that they would not be able to quickly finish the battle and take all the credit and once again left it to the Wagners to take all the losses.