KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — While Ukraine’s march to retake lost land has been slowed by autumn mud, Kyivan forces continue to assist in their advance south, attacking Russian defensive lines in the northeast and guarding against a months-long attack. in the Donetsk region.
Both armies now face demanding situations posed by the thick clay dust that hampered Napoleon’s army in 1812, slowed Hitler’s advance on the Eastern Front in 1941, and wreaked havoc on Russia’s plans for a lightning advance into Ukraine in the spring of this year.
Twice a year, autumn rains and winter thaw in spring, Ukrainian roads can be shrouded in dust, and combat vehicles trapped in the quagmire can be left vulnerable to enemy fire.
There is an old Russian word for muddy stations, “rasputitsa,” and Ukrainians call it “bezdorizhzhya,” which means “lack of roads. “And without roads, as Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told reporters, Ukraine’s progress will be slower.
“It’s the rainy season, and it’s very complicated to use wheeled combat trucks,” he said.
Despite the bad weather, the battles continued as Ukraine sought to encircle the critical city of Kreminna in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region, which it captured through the Russians in April. If the Ukrainians can retake it, they would possibly compromise a critical Russian logistical artery using sources in Luhansk, as well as in the northern component of the neighboring Donetsk region.
Russian army bloggers have released video footage of Moscow’s TOS-1 multiple-launch thermobaric rocket systems to slow the Ukrainian advance.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said the use of the hard formula may imply that the Russians are prioritizing dominance “or that Russian forces lack sufficient artillery formulas or more suitable ammunition to fire missions. “”
Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai highlighted the demanding situations for his forces in the region.
He said heavy rains made it difficult for teams to move. Since the immediate advance of Ukrainian forces into northeastern Ukraine in September, he said the Russians had had time to bring in reserves, damage bridges and further undermine territory while fortifying defensive positions.
Further south, in the Donetsk region, Russian forces continued their frontal attacks on the battered city of Bakhmut, where they failed to gain ground despite months of bombardment of military and civilian targets.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week that the fighting in the city is among the most intense of the war.
“The madness of the Russian command is now more visual there: day after day for months, they lead other people to their deaths, the maximum artillery force moves there,” he said.
Military analysts said the city, which had a pre-war population of 70,000, had a minimal strategic price and that Russian efforts were explained through the festival among disparate elements of the Russian military.
The Bakhmut offensive is led by fighters from the Wagner mercenary group, and its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, sought greater visibility when the army’s effort collapsed.
In Àkherson, a largely agricultural domain where vast open plains crisscross through irrigation canals, rainy weather made things difficult. While the dust slows the Ukrainian advance, poorly prepared Russian infantrymen are also suffering.
Ukraine’s army high command said Friday that “lack of clothing” had led to “widespread robberies and looting” by Russian soldiers.
The Ukrainians also tried to exploit the low morale of the Russian ranks. The Ukrainian army’s defense intelligence firm has published a steady stream of intercepted communications between Russians complaining about harsh conditions.
Ukraine’s military said Friday that “the unsatisfactory state of military equipment” had led to “unique cases of desertion and surrender. “These claims can be independently verified.
FORCED CUTS
Meanwhile, on Friday, the Ukrainian government announced new power cuts in and around the country’s largest cities as part of ongoing Russian moves into the force’s infrastructure.
The press service of Ukrenergo, the sole operator of Ukraine’s high-voltage transmission lines, said in a statement that “emergency cuts” of 4 hours a day or more have resumed in the Kyiv region.
Residents may expect “harder and longer” force cuts before the start of the war, the governor of the capital region, Oleksiy Kuleba, said Friday on Telegram.
Oleg Syniehubov, the governor of Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, announced on Telegram that daily hour-long power cuts would begin Monday in the province, adding the regional capital, which is Ukraine’s second-largest city.
He said the measures “are to stabilize the network of forces, while the enemy continues to bombard [Ukraine’s] infrastructure of forces. “
Officials across the country have suggested others save energy by reducing electrical power consumption at peak times and avoiding the use of high-voltage appliances.
Zelenskyy said last week that 30 of Ukraine’s force plants had been destroyed since Oct. 10, when Russia introduced the first wave of targeted infrastructure.
In the Zaporizhzhia region, Kremlin-appointed officials suggested citizens on Friday move into sunlight to save time with Kyiv and the rest of the country.
“The old days remain. The clocks will turn back in 2022,” management said in a message on its official Telegram channel.
The mayor of Russia installed Enerhodar, where the largest nuclear power plant in Europe is located, also so that citizens forget about the clock.
“We in the Russian Federation and our city are time for Moscow,” Alexander Volga said in a video posted on Telegram.
Russia switched to permanent winter time in 2014. La move came after national polls found that citizens largely disapproved of an earlier government resolution to adjust clocks to save sunlight year-round and struggled to adapt to long, dark mornings.
Meanwhile, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency plan to make a stopover at two locations where Russia has alleged without presenting evidence that Ukraine builds radioactive “dirty bombs. “The inspectors will be sent following a written request from the Ukrainian government, Director-General Rafael Grossi said Thursday.
Moscow has claimed Ukraine is preparing to detonate a device that spreads radioactive waste on its own territory as it seeks to blame Russia. Western officials have dismissed this claim as disinformation that is perhaps intended as a pretext for Russia to justify its own military escalation.
‘COLOSSAL WASTE’
The United States and its Western allies on Thursday rejected Russia’s claims that banned biological weapons are taking a stand in Ukraine with U. S. support, calling the accusation disinformation and fabrication.
Russia’s ambassador to the UN said Moscow would continue a UN investigation into its allegations that countries were violating the conference banning the use of biological weapons.
Independent scientists, Ukrainian leaders and White House and Pentagon officials have questioned Russia’s accusation of secret U. S. biological warfare laboratories. QAnon supporters and some supporters of former President Donald Trump.
Ukraine has a network of biological laboratories that have won investments and studies from the United States. They are owned and operated by Ukraine and are part of the biological hazard relief program that aims to decrease the likelihood of fatal epidemics.
U. S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield called Thursday’s Security Council assembly a “colossal time” and dismissed Russia’s accusation as “pure fabrications presented without a shred of evidence. “seeking to “divert attention from the atrocities that Russian forces are committing in Ukraine and a desperate tactic to justify an unjustifiable war. “
“Ukraine has a biological weapons program,” he said. The United States has a biological weapons program. There are no Ukrainian biological weapons laboratories supported by the United States. “
Other council members, adding China and India, focused on a key factor with the Biological Weapons Convention: unlike the conference banning the use of chemical weapons, it has no provisions to verify compliance and investigate complaints.
China’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Geng Shuang, suggested a conference of the 197 states parties to the conference last November to resume verification negotiations “that have been stalled for more than 20 years. “
Last month, states parties met at Russia’s request over the activities of biological laboratories in Ukraine, but a final report said it was not imaginable to succeed in consensus.
In his briefing, Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia accused the U. S. of being a U. S. UU. de conducting research in Ukraine with lethal pathogens, such as cholera, plague, anthrax and influenza, which could be justified under the pretext of public health. He said documents and evidence recovered through Russia The government advised an army application.
Nebenzia said the Russian military had recovered drones capable of spraying bioagents, as well as documents it said were similar to studies on the imaginable spread of pathogens through bats and migratory birds.
Thomas-Greenfield Russia’s claims are “absurd for many reasons. “
Nebenzia said Russia would go ahead with the solution calling for a Security Council investigation. He said a momentary meeting of the Council’s experts is the next step “and then we will do it when we present it to the Security Council. “
NEW HELP PACK
The Pentagon is sending Ukraine a new arms package and other aid worth $275 million in a bid to boost efforts to drive Russian forces out of key southern spaces as winter approaches, U. S. officials said Thursday.
Officials said there were no new primary weapons in the U. S. package. The U. S. S. , which will be announced on Friday. Instead, much of the U. S. aid is in the U. S. The U. S. military aims to resupply thousands of rounds of ammunition for already existing weapons systems, adding high-mobility artillery rocket systems, known as HIMARS, which Ukraine has used effectively in its counteroffensive against Russia.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the main points of a package that has not yet been made public.
The plan, announced Thursday by the State Department, says counting weapons is complicated in an active war and when there is no major U. S. presence on the ground.
The three-part plan includes short-, medium- and long-term projects to strengthen U. S. and Ukrainian surveillance of transferred material, namely missile systems and anti-aircraft devices of maximum complexity, as well as to improve the security of Ukraine’s aviation and anti-aircraft devices. borders to combat the misuse of weapons and prevent imaginable arms trafficking, he said.
The plan calls for increased border security, more education on accountability procedures and greater efforts to deter and interdict arms trafficking.
Other complex weapons are also on their way to Ukraine.
U. S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday he expects the U. S. to be able to do so. The U. S. Air Force will deliver NASAM’s complex air defense systems to Ukraine early next month and exercise troops there.
According to officials, the newest aid program will be carried out with the presidential retirement authority, allowing the Pentagon to take weapons from its own arsenal and temporarily ship them to Ukraine.
Including the new $275 million, the U. S. The U. S. has now committed about $18 billion in weapons and other gadgets to Ukraine since the war began.
Information for this article provided by Marc Santora of The New York Times and Edith M. Lederer, David Klepper, Lolita C. Baldor, Matthew Lee, Tara Copp and Associated Press staff.