Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin:
[ColonelCassad] 1. In the area of ​​Balakleya, the enemy controls a part of Verbovka, part of the Volokhov Yar-Balakleya highway, an interchange at Volokhov Yar.
The enemy also advanced from the south of Balakleya to Bayrak and Krasnaya Gusarovka. Balakleya itself is completely under the control of our troops. The main events unfold to the north of the city. There are battles at Shevchenkove.
It is reported about the introduction of reserves by the parties. Ours are advancing from the direction of Kupyansk (which has been shelled from the MLRS for the last 2 days), the enemy - from the direction of Andreevka. In the offensive, units trained by NATO are used, foreign mercenaries are actively used.
After the failures with the offensive near Kherson and Kharkov, the offensive towards Balakliya is another attempt by Kyiv to achieve operational success.
2. In the Kherson direction, the front has stabilized. The enemy is exhausted almost everywhere and is unable to attack. Following the results of the battle, the American media states that the losses in the Kherson direction were 1 to 5 not in favor of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, not counting the large number of destroyed equipment. The control of several villages is clearly an inadequate price for a week-long offensive with such losses.
3. In the Artyomovsky direction, after the capture of Kodema, our troops are preparing for an offensive on Zaitsevo (not to be confused with Gorlovsky Zaitsevo). So far, the village is completely under the control of the enemy. The capture of Zaitsevo, as well as the Veselaia Dolina, is necessary to start a direct assault on Artemovsk.
4. In the Peski area, our troops have completed the expulsion of the enemy from the strongholds in the area of ​​​​the village and are now concentrating on the assault on Pervomaisky. The fighting is going on on the outskirts of the city, after the artillery defeat managed to grind the oporniks on the near approaches.
The clearing operations in Peski have been going on for three weeks now
From Earlier:
Battles for Balakleya. 09/07/2022
[ColonelCassad] At 12:00, according to reports, fighting is going on on the outskirts of Balakleya (Balakleya itself is under the control of the RF Armed Forces), in Verbovka, in the Volokhov Yar area (the enemy entered the Volokhov Yar - Izyum road), as well as in the Semenovka area in the direction of Shevchenkovo (on the Chuguev-Kupyansk highway).
Since the morning, the Russian Aerospace Forces have been actively working (in the morning they lost one Sushka, the pilot was evacuated) and artillery, there are reports that the reserves transferred by the Russian Armed Forces have already been put into use. The enemy is also actively working with artillery and MLRS and is putting into action its reserves previously concentrated in the Chuguev area.
Sushka is an MI-17 military transport helicopter, a varient of the MI-8
In general, there is a growing serious operational crisis.
What is happening now to the north of Balakleya steadily resembles the well-known breakthrough of the ISIS strike group to the Itria-Khanasser highway in January-February 2016, which created a threat to the operational encirclement of the Russian-Syrian group in Aleppo. Then the reserves from the "Tigers" and "Hezbalons" were closed with the support of the Russian Aerospace Forces. Let's see how the "fire brigade" works this time.