by Sergey Adamov
[REGNUM] After a short pause on the fronts, the Armed Forces of Ukraine again made an attempt to go on the offensive in a number of areas. Reports of hostilities come from the DPR and the Zaporozhye region, where Ukrainian troops are trying to advance towards the city of Tokmak from the village of Rabotino.
In the second half of August, part of the units that were involved in this direction suffered heavy losses and temporarily suspended their attempts to move forward. In early September (the date is not known), President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky arrived at the Zaporozhye sector of the front . It is known that he met with the command of the 82nd Airborne, 71st Jaeger and 148th Artillery Brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Immediately after Zelensky’s visit, the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Zaporozhye direction again attempted an offensive - and again suffered losses. Moreover, enemy units operating in the Rabotino area got "into a fire bag," Vladimir Rogov, head of the Zaporozhye movement "We are together with Russia," said on September 5 .
The situation at the site near Rabotino is similar to the development of fighting 45 km to the west, in the area of the village of Pyatikhatki, where the Armed Forces of Ukraine have similarly driven themselves into a "bag", Rogov told RIA Novosti . The enemy forces have been grinding for a long time by our units, the public figure emphasized.
The concept of "fire bag", which Rogov used, implies that individual units are under dense artillery fire from several sides at once.
Although they are not formally surrounded, artillery deprives them of supplies. Units caught in the "bag" are deprived of the opportunity to move forward. It remains for them to either retreat, or be destroyed, left without supplies.
As an informed source of IA Regnum explained , the formations of the 82nd Airborne Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which operate south of Rabotino, fell into the "bag". It is noteworthy that in addition to artillery, FPV kamikaze drones are actively attacking the enemy.
“Separate units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine moved from Rabotino to the south in the direction of Novoprokopovka,” the source said. - Somewhere they hastily dug up dugouts, somewhere they settled in our former trenches. Further, these units began to have big problems. Probably, this is just what they call the "fire bag" in the media .
Russian FPV drones work closely and massively against enemy clusters and individual forces. “In the “fire bag”, because any transport that tries to get to them is destroyed. You don't carry much on your own either. In addition, these formations operate without the support of armored vehicles, for all the same reasons - because of the high risk of losses, ” said the source of IA Regnum .
"THERE ARE RUMORS ABOUT THE FIRST CHALLENGER 2 SHOT DOWN"
On September 4, Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu announced the heavy losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine operating in the direction of Rabotino . According to the head of the military department, a cluster of enemy armored vehicles was destroyed in this direction in a day. “Yesterday, as a result of a serious attack in the Rabota direction, they lost six tanks,” the minister informed.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine are indeed making attempts to use heavy armored vehicles, including those of NATO production, a source told IA Regnum . But lately, the enemy has been using light wheeled armored vehicles more often.
This is explained by the fact that in the event of the defeat of a single unit of armored vehicles, the crew's chances of escaping and surviving increase. In addition, wheeled armored vehicles move much faster than tanks, and their losses are easier to replace.
“I won’t say specific figures on armored vehicles, but the other day, indeed, there was a cover. Rumor has it that the British Challenger 2 tank was destroyed for the first time, ” the source said.
According to him, “in principle, this is possible,” because the enemy’s 82nd Airborne Brigade is currently operating in the Rabota direction, they are just armed with Stryker armored personnel carriers, Marder infantry fighting vehicles and Challengers.
“Techniques try to keep their distance, to fire from relatively safe positions. But the artillery works, and they also try to stop such sorties. The Armed Forces operate more in groups of infantry, who arrive on wheeled armored vehicles and jump off. Then the car leaves so as not to fall under our drones or artillery fire , ”the source told IA Regnum .
WHERE THE ARMED FORCES OF UKRAINE ARE TRYING TO CONTINUE THE "OFFENSIVE"
At the same time, the enemy does not abandon attempts to expand the area he occupied in the vicinity of Rabotino, not only in the direction of the south, but also to the east. Here, the Armed Forces of Ukraine also involve mobile infantry groups and are especially active in using artillery to shell the defensive lines of Russian troops.
“They are trying to move east from Rabotino near the village of Verbovoye,” a source told IA Regnum . - Artillery is used very actively in this area by both sides. They seek to destroy our defensive lines wherever they can. That is, they are trying to break the "dragon's teeth", if possible, remotely neutralize minefields.
In response, a counterbattery fight is being waged. “In general, we can say that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are using their small territorial acquisitions, trying to expand the bridgehead both in depth and in width,” the interlocutor explained.
There is also information that the Armed Forces of Ukraine made another attempt to attack, but not in the Zaporozhye region, but in the DPR - on the front between the settlements of Novodonetskoye and Novomayorskoye in the south-west of the republic. Alexander Khodakovsky, deputy head of the National Guard for the DPR, announced an attempt to break through the enemy . According to him, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are actively using artillery, as a result of which they managed to neutralize part of the minefields on the outskirts of the defense line of Russian troops.
Sources of IA Regnum also confirm that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are trying to advance in this area with the naval infantry forces.
“As for the Novodonetskoye-Novomayorskoye sector of the front, various reports come from there. The 40th Naval Infantry Brigade of the enemy is involved there, which has been replenished since July, because in the first weeks of the “offensive” it suffered heavy losses.,” the interlocutor specified.
Apparently, the situation there is also developing without success for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Tellingly, the Ukrainian military is once again trying to advance in several places at once, which looks, to put it mildly, strange. “ They are again spraying their small forces instead of concentrating on any one area and trying to break through ,” summed up the source of IA Regnum.
The Lostarmour portal, which analyzes data from the combat zone, notes: following the results of three months of the “counterattack”, the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Zaporozhye direction were able to achieve only minimal success. The area occupied by the enemy is 200 square kilometers, or 0.4% of the almost 50 thousand square kilometers of the territories of the Kherson, Zaporozhye regions and the southern part of the DPR.
The portal also published an analytical material based on photos and videos that appeared in open sources. According to Lostarmour, 120 armored vehicles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were destroyed in only one sector of the Ukrainian offensive in the area of the settlements of Malaya Tokmchak and Rabotino. The authors of the study emphasize that this is only the minimum figure that can be confirmed.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, during the unsuccessful counteroffensive, the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost more than 66,000 people and 7,600 weapons.