Frisak Tom Cooper
https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukrai ... dd8dccfa6e
malo highlights analize...
In total, I cannot but repeat myself: this war is going to be decided on the battlefield.
Moscow seems to be both clueless and desperate about the fact that the RFA lacks the means at least to find, not to talk about precisely strike and thus interrupt the flow of Western arms into Ukraine. Instead, the RFA reverted to the most primitive means of searching for targets: ‘scouting by fire’. That is, the Russians are wasting their continuously decreasing stock of cruise missiles to target whatever storage facilities they think might be used to hide Western weapons.
With other words: after hospitals and apartment buildings, the new priority for Russian targeting lists in Ukraine are hangars, garages, warehouses etc. A ‘good example’ of this occurred in the Dnipropetrovsk area, on 1 May: a cruise missile went off in between two warehouses of an agricultural enterprise in the Synelynkovsky District. One hangar was badly damaged (see attached photo), the other destroyed.
Following an Ukrainian artillery strike on a Russian command post near Izium, on 30 April, Kyiv claimed the death or injury of up to 20 high-ranking officers. Some sources claimed even Gerasimov was wounded. As usually, there’s no clear confirmation for any of related reports: but, there’s no denial that the activity of RFA in eastern Ukraine slowed down by quite some, at least for 36 hours after that attack, before it was ‘back to normal, yesterday, on 2 May.
In general, it seems that during 1 May, the RFA began re-deploying whatever ‘reserves’ it was able to find along different sectors of the frontline, and concentrating these in relatively few ‘hotspots’. One is the well-known area south of Izium; the other Lyman, the third Rubizhne, the fourth Popasna, and the fifth was the area south of Kryviy Rihh. At least three of these areas have received contingents of 500 combatants from the Wagner PMC, each, too.
The most active was the sector between Krymsky and Yampil, where the RFA attempted to push the defenders against Donets. The latter of the two is about 25km east of Slovyansk, and 40km west of Severodonetsk, and came under a pincer attack. One of resulting engagements was particularly interesting. Over the last 3–4 weeks, there was a growing number of reports about the Russians trying to adapt the tactics of the Ukrainian Army, and operating in small units to hit the defenders where they expect this the least.
Well, in at least one case, this idea ended in an ambush, in which a squad from the 24th Spetsnaz Brigade was destroyed to the last (graphic!) while trying to infiltrate Ukrainian positions in forests surrounding Yampil. https://www.facebook.com/www.dshv.mil.g ... 048947399/
Further East…. On 1 May, the RFA attempted to assault remaining Ukrainian positions in southern Rubizhne, and failed. Following a hours-long artillery barrage, it tried again on 2 May, and failed once again. It was similar in the Popasna area, in Ozerne and Mariinka: all assaults remained unsuccessful.
BTW, Separatists — who are continuously complaining about murderous effectiveness of the Ukrainian artillery — are reporting that the Ukrainians have concrete bunkers inside Popasna, equipped with armoured shutters: whenever encircled by the Russians, they call artillery fire on their own positions, until the Separatists and Russians are either destroyed or forced to withdraw. ….and they are reporting murderous attacks by Ukrainian Bayraktar UAVs: just one of these should’ve killed 19 troops.
the Russians continued shelling Osokorivka, Trudoliubivka, and Kniazivka. Fighting inside Tarvriiske went on, but serious Russian ground attacks were reported only from Zahradivka and Ivanivka (both were repelled). Mykolaiv is continuously hit by multiple rocket launchers: no casualties have been reported, but the city is out of water. In turn, the Ukrainian artillery hit a Russian ammunition depot in Chornobaivka.