Hard fighting, Ukraine’s counteroffensive is going on, but at a very high cost. Kiev’s army is gaining ground in an attempt to retake Russian-held territory. However, each progress costs lives.
also read
Ukraine claims that on the Bakhmut and Zaporizhia fronts, several hundred meters have advanced in the course of fierce clashes. In the last 24 hours, “there was an advance of 200-500 meters on the Bakhmut front, in Zaporizhia from 300-350 meters,” said Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar, stressing that the Kiev soldiers are advancing despite Russian air forces and artillery superiority.
On the Berdianks front, he added, fighting continued near the village of Makarivka, while on the Mariupol front fighting continued in the Novodanilivka and Nopopokrovsk districts. The Russians, says Maliar, lost an artillery battery, two electronic warfare systems, an anti-aircraft missile system, a radar system and ten transports.
KIEV: “MOSCOW LOSSES VERY HIGH”
The Kiev army inflicted heavy casualties on enemy forces, so Russia lost five times as many troops on the southern front as Ukraine. In the last week alone, Russian losses in Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast were 8.73 times higher than Ukraine’s.
“We suffered far fewer casualties overall during the war,” Maliar said. “I would like to remind you that during the war neither side publishes accurate data on their losses, because the enemy can use this information to predict the enemy’s further actions on the battlefield,” he added.
UKRAINIAN BRIGADE CUT IN HALF
The fate of the 37th Brigade shows the very high price that Ukraine is paying for trying to retake its territory – as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also explained: There were less than 50 men in the unit and 30 of them are not returned, as one soldier, “Lumberjack,” a 30-year-old member of the brigade who had just been trained and armed with Western weapons, told the Washington Post.
On June 5, after a 20-minute advance south of Velyka Novosilka in southern Donetsk, the unit came under Russian mortar fire from three sides. Two comrades in his vehicle were seriously injured, one lost a leg. Lumberjack crawled towards a crater for cover but was injured in the shoulder: “We were less than 50, he says, but 30 didn’t come back: dead, wounded or captured.”
But the deployment of the 37th Brigade, which includes American volunteers and European-trained Ukrainian soldiers, helped other units liberate four villages, the Post notes, after which the story shows “the horrendous cost” facing Ukraine to repel the Russian invasion.
PRIGOZHIN “FREEZES” PUTIN
Russian President Vladimir Putin advocates “transferring” Wagner fighters to the regular armed forces. However, Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the mercenaries who fought for months in Bakhmut, reiterated that his men will not sign any contracts with the defense ministry of the “hated” Sergei Shoigu.
“When we started fighting in this war, no one said we were required to sign an agreement with the Department of Defense. No Wagner fighter will sign contracts. When the homeland was in trouble – Prigozhin’s words – and when Wagner’s help was needed, we went to the field and the president gave us guarantees concerning public support, including economic ones, for the mercenaries.