Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

Facing an enemy with a far greater population and military forces, Ukraine has resorted to innovative new methods to counter the Russian invaders who continue to attack four provinces in the far east of the country.

Since April, Russian military forces have been pushing west in the Donetsk region, with the aim of capturing the city of Pokrovsk. Over the past six months of grinding fighting, Russian forces have managed to move the battlefront around 20 kilometres, but at the cost of horrendous losses.

The British Ministry of Defence, which publishes periodic reports on the war, said recently that since the war began in February 2022, Russian forces had suffered over 600,000 casualties.

“Russia’s casualty rate will likely continue to average above 1,000 a day throughout September 2024 as Russia continues operations on a wide front from Kursk in the north to Robotyne in the south,” it said.

To meet the relentless needs of the Russian military, Russian President Vladimir Putin recently announced an expansion of Russia’s army by 180,000 – the third mobilisation since he began the invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago.

One Ukrainian infantryman, who has been on the front line for the past six months, told The Kyiv Independent: “Their tactics never change: they attack with quantity, and we fight them off with quality.”

Within Range

The Russian advance means that Pokrovsk is now within artillery and drone range of the Russian lines.

Apart from attacks to seize Ukrainian territory, Putin has also engaged in a relentless campaign of missile and rocket attacks on cities and towns across Ukraine, to destroy critical infrastructure like power stations and railway lines, to bomb Ukraine back into the Stone Age.

Thousands of civilians have been killed, and millions of Ukrainians, mainly women and children, have fled their country and are now refugees in countries across Europe, as well as in countries like Australia, the United States and Canada.

This is the reason why Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy has been pleading with Ukraine’s Western allies to allow Ukraine to use advanced Western missiles against military targets well inside Russia, so far without success.

U.S. President Joe Biden is clearly fearful that permission to use long-range Western missiles inside Russia would be used by Putin as a declaration of war from NATO and all of Western Europe. Putin has threatened as much.

Washington has already provided Ukraine with missiles with a range of about 150 kilometres, and the British and French governments have also offered the Storm Shadow missile, which has a range of up to 250 kilometres, for use in Ukrainian territory.

The German Government has refused point blank to give Ukraine its 500 kilometre-range Taurus cruise missiles, which could hit targets deep inside Russia, yet Germany continues to receive supplies of oil and gas from Russia.

Faced with continuous hesitation by his allies, the Ukrainian President has authorised Ukraine to take action unilaterally against Russia.

Pushback

In early August, Ukrainian forces began a diversionary raid on the Russian province of Kursk, which adjoins Ukraine. Ukrainian forces quickly pushed back Russian forces, and now hold around 1500 square kilometres of Russian territory.

Despite repeated attempts by Russian forces to force the Ukrainians out, they remain in control of parts of Kursk province.

Separately, Ukrainian forces have conducted a number of audacious drone attacks on Russian targets. Apart from its attack on the flagship of Russia’s naval fleet in Crimea, Ukraine has bombed a submarine in dry dock, and the Kerch bridge linking Crimea to Russia.

It has launched drone attacks on military facilities in western Russia and most recently launched a successful drone attack on a huge warehouse in Toropets, a town in Russia’s Tver region, 380 kilometres northwest of Moscow and 500 kilometres from the northern border of Ukraine.

The warehouse apparently held ballistic missiles, including Iskanders, anti-aircraft missiles, artillery ammunition, and KAB guided bombs.

A source in the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) told The Kyiv Independent that the attack “literally wiped off the face of the earth a large warehouse of the main missile and artillery department of the Russian Defence Ministry”.

Ukraine’s asymmetric warfare has kept the Kremlin under pressure, but for how much longer will Kyiv have to defend itself with one arm tied behind its back?

___

Republished with thanks to News Weekly. Image courtesy of Adobe.