Status: 07/07/2022 1:09 p.m
According to the Ukrainian army, while the attacks on eastern Ukraine continue, it is advancing somewhat in the south of the country. According to Kyiv, an effect of new weapons is already evident.
If the Ukrainian army has its way, it’s still far from enough – not enough Western weapons for fighting on the front lines. And yet the Western systems already seem to be making a difference. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said:
It is finally noticeable that the western artillery is being used powerfully. The weapons we received from our partners. Your accuracy is just as needed. Our defenders attack depots and other targets important to the occupier’s logistics.
And that significantly reduces the offensive capability of the Russian army.
In the past few days, Ukrainian media have been full of images of fires. In the Kharkiv region, in several places in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, in the occupied south – the Ukrainian armed forces want to have destroyed arms depots and command points of the enemy everywhere. According to the BBC, there were eleven such attacks.
conflicting parties as a source
Information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian conflict parties cannot be directly checked by an independent body in the current situation.
“It has changed drastically”
“A single high-precision shot is enough to destroy an entire depot that has been filled with ammunition and weapons over the course of months or even years,” Ukrainian military analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko told Ukrainian television. “The effect and the potential are incomparable.”
First of all, we are talking about western howitzers used by the Ukrainians. Including French systems “Caesar” and the “Panzerhaubitzen 2000”, which were supplied by Germany and the Netherlands. Also the US multiple rocket launchers “HIMARS”. Kovalenko pointed out that these weapons were already influencing the battlefield:
It has changed drastically. Because these new long-range, high-precision weapons have appeared. They enable attacks on command posts, fuel and ammunition depots, and even troop units in the rear of the Russian military. So at a distance deep into the occupied territories that previously seemed safe.
The control and supply system had been set up over the months and had settled in – “and now it’s being totally disrupted”.
According to Kowalenko, he believes that by the end of July the Russian army could see a collapse in terms of arms supplies and supplies for the troops.
Shaded in white: advance of the Russian army. Shaded in green: Russian-backed separatist areas. Crimea: annexed by Russia.
Image: ISW/07/06/2022
Further attacks in eastern Ukraine
But at the moment this is pie in the sky. Russian attacks are continuing, particularly in eastern Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, the Russian side shelled more than ten settlements. Attacks were repelled on some sectors of the front in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions.
In the south and south-east the army claims to have made some progress. Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces were advancing in several directions: “to the south, in the Kherson region, in the Zaporizhia region. We will not give up our lands, the whole territory of sovereign Ukraine will be Ukrainian.”
Reports of advances to the south cannot be independently verified. However, the US think tank Institute for the Study of War analyzed that the Ukrainian military is currently creating the conditions for a counter-offensive on the city of Cherson.
Blocked access to social media
The Russian side is trying to gain a stronger foothold there and tie the region to Russia. For example, by restricting access to information. Ukrainian radio and television have been shut down for months. Access to social media was also blocked yesterday.
“Two networks are no longer available – Instagram and YouTube,” says Serhiy Khlan, adviser to the Kherson regional administration. “The occupiers are claiming this as their victory by beaming the Cherson region back into dark times, into the times of an information vacuum. Because for the occupiers, any truthful information that is published on the Internet is unacceptable.”
Selenskyj expressed concern and called for contact with the people in the temporarily Russian-controlled cities to be maintained. They should know that Ukraine is fighting for them.
Topic overview
war in Ukraine
Western Weapons in the Ukraine War and the Situation in the South
Palina Milling, ARD Moscow, 7/7/2022 12:24 p.m