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Battle for Kyiv: Ukrainian valor, Russian blunders combined to save the capital
The Washington Post ^ | August 24, 2022 | Paul Sonne, Isabelle Khurshudyan, Serhiy Morgunov and Kostiantyn Khudov

Posted on 08/24/2022 8:35:04 AM PDT by Timber Rattler

A hail of shrapnel from kamikaze drones ripped through the tent where off-duty Ukrainian border guards were sleeping near a crossing with Belarus, three hours north of Ukraine’s capital.

Viktor Derevyanko woke to scalding pain, his body burning. Blood spilled from his hand as he tried to wipe his face. A piece of metal had traveled through his arm and stomach and into the muscle around his heart.

“I couldn’t get my bearings,” said Derevyanko, the deputy head of the unit. “Only on the third explosion did I manage to fall out of bed and try to find at least someplace to hide, because the explosions weren’t ending.”

It was around 4:15 a.m. on Feb. 24.

(snip)

If the Russians could seize the seat of power in Ukraine, or at least cause the government to flee in panic, the defense of the country would quickly unravel. Moscow could install a puppet government.

That was the Kremlin’s plan.

Instead, what transpired in and around Kyiv in the ensuing 36 days would represent the biggest foreign blunder in the 22-year rule of Russian President Vladimir Putin. His assault on the city instantly reordered the security architecture of Europe against Moscow and isolated his nation to a degree unseen since the Cold War. To the surprise of the world, the offensive against the Ukrainian capital would end in a humiliating retreat, which would expose deep systemic problems in a Russian military he had spent billions to rebuild.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Russia
KEYWORDS: 10percent4biden; 40kto3million; another40billion; bendovertaxpayers; bezosblog; bidenbandwagon; bilge; bullsqueeze; europe; fabulism; fabulists; isabellekhurshudyan; kostiantynkhudov; makingstuffup; mediafabulists; mediatelepaths; muga; nato; paulsonne; postfabulism; postfabulists; serhiymorgunov; surejan; taxpayersbendover; ukraine; ukraineuberalles; war; washingsnotpest; zellenskyytrollsonfr; zzelenskyybotsonfr
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To: Timber Rattler

L.O.L.

The Battle of Kiev


21 posted on 08/24/2022 9:15:40 AM PDT by silverleaf (“Freedom ultimately means the right of other people to do things that you disagree with”. T. Sowell )
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To: yuleeyahoo

The See I Ay told them


22 posted on 08/24/2022 9:16:18 AM PDT by silverleaf (“Freedom ultimately means the right of other people to do things that you disagree with”. T. Sowell )
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To: dforest

Please…I am sure the Pentagon has already produced a new ribbon or medal for all the planners that helped Zaluzhny win the Battle of Kiev


23 posted on 08/24/2022 9:18:45 AM PDT by silverleaf (“Freedom ultimately means the right of other people to do things that you disagree with”. T. Sowell )
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To: BenLurkin

Nor as dumb as our govt thinks they are


24 posted on 08/24/2022 9:19:55 AM PDT by silverleaf (“Freedom ultimately means the right of other people to do things that you disagree with”. T. Sowell )
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To: silverleaf

Our government sucks.


25 posted on 08/24/2022 9:21:46 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire, or both.)
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To: dforest

It took a while to get to an informed comment on this thread. I was tempted to ask some of the Tards what the population of Kiev is and how many troops were sent by the RF, but I’ve discovered that the trolls and the Tards don’t care what the facts are. They, like women’s studies post modernists, have their “narrative”, and it would be “patriarchal” to challenge their narrative with facts and reason. No one with an ounce of intelligence and relevant knowledge would think that the plan was to storm a city of 3 million with 30k troops. Even if the Zelensky regime had fled, taking control of a city that size would require more than 30k troops. As it was, the RF pinned a large part of the UFA in the West while Russians struck quickly in the Donbass and the Kherson region. Once that part of the plan was executed, the RF redeployed to focus on the east and south.


26 posted on 08/24/2022 9:27:23 AM PDT by achilles2000 ("I'll agree to save the whales as long as we can deport the liberals")
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To: dforest

They sent, at a minimum, 50,000 men, including four “armies” (western corps), including those committed at Sumy and Chernighiv. They included thousands of internal security troops, indicating that they intended to take and occupy Kiev and suppress civilian protests.

They were not prepared for the opposition they encountered.


27 posted on 08/24/2022 9:27:24 AM PDT by buwaya (Strategic imperatives )
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To: dforest
Russia would have sent far more troops for a battle in a huge city.

They did, and most of them died.


28 posted on 08/24/2022 9:30:55 AM PDT by Timber Rattler ("To hold a pen is to be at war." --Voltaire)
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To: Timber Rattler

bs


29 posted on 08/24/2022 9:42:50 AM PDT by dforest
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To: Timber Rattler

LOL, the sources of those three articles in order, are;
British intel,
an anonymous US government official,
and Ukrainian intelligence.

This is like the dossier, they all report what each other say and then explain how everybody agrees. LOL


30 posted on 08/24/2022 9:45:47 AM PDT by DesertRhino (Dogs are called man's best friend. Moslems hate dogs. Add it up..)
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To: achilles2000

Go stuff your woke BS assumptions up your own depraved bunghole.

The Russians attacked Kiev with four “armies” (western army corps), including the majority of their best units. They advanced on three axes, from the north, west of the Dneiper, north but East of the Dneiper, and from the East - Sumy, also heading to Kiev. The intent was clear - to “bounce” Kiev, and failing that to surround it. They almost managed to surround it in fact.

And they occupied just four of the regular Ukrainian brigades in the process, as the vast majority of the defenders were militia and security forces, like the border guards mentioned here. And that was because nearly all the active Ukrainian army was deployed in the East. There was very little to draw out of the Kiev area.


31 posted on 08/24/2022 9:46:20 AM PDT by buwaya (Strategic imperatives )
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To: achilles2000

Ding ding ding

Force ratio for that kind of battle would have been 3:1 or more
Bonehead US analysts persist in blaming Russia for not being “:prepared”
As a feint force, they did pretty swell. Preventing about 100,000 ukes from redeploying to Donbass…their main objective

Col Douglas Macgregor explains

https://youtu.be/GnTyVoshybg

Meanwhile in Kiev the electricity water cellphones and internet stayed on and the coffeeshops were busy. Quite the battleground


32 posted on 08/24/2022 9:48:42 AM PDT by silverleaf (“Freedom ultimately means the right of other people to do things that you disagree with”. T. Sowell )
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Comment #33 Removed by Moderator

To: buwaya

34 posted on 08/24/2022 9:50:18 AM PDT by caww (O death, when you seized my Lord, you lost your grip on me......Augustine)
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To: silverleaf

The Ukrainians didn’t have 100,000 men ready to go south or east. They had four active brigades (@20,000) between Lviv and Chernighiv. The rest were militia and security troops.

If the Russian plan had come off, which depended on panic and a collapse of morale, then they certainly would have had a sufficient force. The same assumptions worked just fine at Perekop/Kherson.


35 posted on 08/24/2022 9:55:20 AM PDT by buwaya (Strategic imperatives )
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To: silverleaf
Ding ding ding Force ratio for that kind of battle would have been 3:1 or more

So what is the present force ratio of Russians that are invading eastern and southern Ukraine?

36 posted on 08/24/2022 9:56:07 AM PDT by tlozo (Better to Die on Your Feet than Live on Your Knees)
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To: buwaya

They aren’t assumptions. You don’t even know where UFA brigades were deployed. “Nearly all of the active UFA” wasn’t in the Donbass (although a large part was), and a significant number of the UFA brigades aren’t in the Donbass even now.


37 posted on 08/24/2022 10:02:08 AM PDT by achilles2000 ("I'll agree to save the whales as long as we can deport the liberals")
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To: achilles2000

They were redeployed after the Russians withrew. AFAIK none are near Kiev. Four regular brigades at least are on the Kherson front. One is at Kharkiv.
The rest are along the Eastern front, Kharkiv-Zaporozhia.


38 posted on 08/24/2022 10:05:58 AM PDT by buwaya (Strategic imperatives )
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To: buwaya

This battle will go down as pivotal in world history—up there with, El Aleman, Stalingrad, Kursk, Midway and Gettysburg. It was the day Russia died. The next big Battle in Donbas will see the end of the war in a Magnificent Ukraine Victory to rival the Fall of Berlin in 1945. Only a few more months!


39 posted on 08/24/2022 10:08:32 AM PDT by Forward the Light Brigade ( Ride to the sound of the Guns!)
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To: silverleaf
As a feint force, they did pretty swell.

Russians used their elite airborne troops to try to take Hostomel Airport north of Kyiv. It was a disaster.

Russian Airborne Assault on Hostomel Airport, February 24, 2022

However, the Russians had failed to clear the region around the airport, and soon found themselves under fire from special forces of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, the 3rd “Prince Svyatoslav” Special Forces Regiment, and local partisan fighters (Ukrinform.net, March 4, 2022). During the fighting, a sniper inflicted a serious loss to the Russian command by killing Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky, the chief-of-staff of the Russian Airborne (Pravda, March 3, 2022). The general was a veteran of combat in Chechnya, Abkhazia, Crimea and Syria; his presence on the frontline suggests how deeply important this attack was to Moscow’s Ukraine strategy.

The critical moment in the battle appeared to come when the Ukrainian National Guard’s well-trained 4th Rapid Reaction Brigade counterattacked with air support from a pair of Ukrainian Sukhoi Su-24M attack aircraft. Ukrainian Mi-24P “Hind” helicopter gunships and MiG-29s were also deployed to eliminate Russian paratroopers who had fled into the forest or the nearby village of Hostomel. Russia’s main battlefield asset, its artillery, appeared to play little role in preventing the arrival of Ukrainian reinforcements. Unable to land, the Ilyushin transports with their troops and armor were turned back in mid-air.

Russian Airborne Disaster at Hostomel Airport

40 posted on 08/24/2022 10:09:25 AM PDT by tlozo (Better to Die on Your Feet than Live on Your Knees)
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