june 13, 2023
Sergiy Zgurets, director of the information and consulting company Defense Express, noted that the advance of Ukrainian troops continues, but the enemy is unable to determine the direction of the main attack on the wide Zaporozhye front
He said this on the air on the Espreso TV channel.
“The actions of the Ukrainian army continue in the Zaporozhye direction. Two directions are aimed at the prospect of advancing Ukrainian troops to Melitopol and two directions are aimed at preparing actions to advance the grouping of our troops to Mariupol. Now the enemy is not able to determine which of these directions will be the main one,” – Zgurets explained.
According to the expert, so far none of the parties has used the main strike forces in the Zaporozhye direction.
“The General Staff of Ukraine is effectively guarding this fog of war because the advance of Ukrainian troops continues, but the enemy cannot determine the direction of the main attack on the wide Zaporozhye front. Some Russian units are trying to hold back our advance. The leadership of the Russian Federation is trying to overturn reserves, focusing on forecasts of hostilities. So far, none of the parties used the main strike forces in this direction,” Zgurets stressed.
- Valery Markus, chief sergeant of the 47th Magura Brigade , spoke about the losses of the enemy in the Zaporizhia direction, including the soldiers in recent days destroyed hundreds of invaders, 15 tanks and two “sontsepiks”
- It was also reported that the chief of staff of the 35th Combined Arms Army, Major General Sergei Goryachev, was destroyed in Zaporozhye.
This is looking good. But what I don’t understand: If there had been a break through russian defence, why didn’t the Ukrainian command go all in and exploit this with deep attacks into the back of the front, with all available units? Like they did last year in the Kharkiv region? The meager success numbers of the last two days, nothing to phone home about, show that this didn’t happen. But such a dynamic offensive action would have been exactly the scenario where Leos and Bradleys would shine! Is this a consequence of dividing the attack force into several smaller forces, located widely apart? Not enough reserves at any point of attack to actually penetrate into the enemy’s soft underbelly?
This is something nobody knows about because the AFU is keeping things tight-lipped. If we had the answers, the cockroaches would have them too.
Anyhow, this situation is not comparable with Kharkiv. Other than there, the cockroaches this time have created elaborate defensive lines, and this for months now. The cockroaches took the opportunity to form three defensive lines. These lines are not a hundred meters apart, but sometimes 10 or more km. Each one has massive amounts of landmines, concertina wires, booby traps, bunkers and miles of trenches. They are covered by artillery, mlrs, mortars, gunship choppers, and ground attack aircraft. They also have many more men in uniform than in September.
In the meantime, Ukraine had been begging and waiting for modern Western tanks, aircraft, and long-range weapons, and more. Tanks came only recently and few in numbers. The Storm Shadow even more recently. To date, still no aircraft and no ATACMS.
There is something to say about holding an offensive line and ensure the occupiers don’t get in behind and cut off the advance teams. Something else to consider is some of these pushes are without heavy equipment just so they do not see or hear us coming. So there’s not much long distance kit to strike with.