Ukraine and its main supporters, the United States and Great Britain, consider that the Russian military campaign is entering a critical phase for Moscow due to the difficulties it has in maintaining its offensive almost five months after the start of the actions.
“As soon as we received the HIMARS, panic spread in the Russian Army. Logistics centers and arsenals fell under our fire, as did the tactical decision-making centers,” the adviser to the Ukrainian president, told a press conference. Mykhailo Podoliak.
And this state of panic, according to the representative of the Ukrainian Presidency, “is felt by people in the regions” occupied by Russia, who “understand that everything will change.”
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According to the Ukrainian command, Russian forces have been forced to use reserve units to defend occupied positions in southern Ukraine and prevent the counterattack of the Ukrainian army.
“The enemy is defending previously occupied positionsis concentrating its efforts on preventing the offensive of the Defense Forces and has introduced reserve units,” the Ukrainian High Command said in its morning report.
HIMARS M142 multiple missile launcher
Wikimedia Commons
Information corroborated by the American Institute for War Studies (ISW), according to which, “Russia’s current operational pace does not differ much from that during the officially declared operational pause between July 7 and 16.”
“Russian forces continued to carry out minor attacks throughout this time northwest of Sloviansk and around the Siversk and Bakhmut areas without capturing any decisive ground,” the ISW noted.
The US institute found that the Russian forces stationed in this area “they have carried out fewer ground attacks along the border between the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions than during the operational pause“.
For its part, British intelligence found that in the Donbas region “Ukrainian forces continue to repel Russian attempts to assault the Vuhlehirska power plant”, an essential step to focus their efforts on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the main strongholds in the region. from Donetsk.
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Changes in the balance of forces
And it is that while Russian troops have used between 55 and 60% of their reserve of high-precision missiles, according to the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine (GUR), Ukraine receives more and more powerful and precise weapons.
GUR spokesman Vadym Skibitksy indicated that Russia uses its high-precision missiles less and less frequentlywhich include the Kh-101, Kh-555, Iskander and Kalibr systems, due to the effect of Western sanctions that limit access to electronic components necessary for these systems.
The Ukrainian president himself, Volodymyr Zelenskycelebrated this gradual change in the balance of forces by stating, in his usual daily message, that “HIMARS has become a common word for us, just like Javelin or NLAW, like ‘Stugna’ or ‘Neptun'”.
Zelensky highlighted the efforts of the Ukrainian government to access “modern air defense systems, which we are asking partners for” and assured that “Russian terror must be defeated. And this will be our joint victory, of the Ukrainian and American peoples” .
Two Ukrainian soldiers deactivate a Russian mine on the beach in Odessa.
Hunting season against the HIMARS
Nevertheless, the Russian command does not seem willing to change its plansespecially after Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu ordered the operational destruction of these US missile systems.
As reported today by the Russian Ministry of Defense, between July 5 and 20 Russian troops destroyed with high-precision missiles “four launchers HIMARS of American manufacture and a truck with supplies” for these systems, which Ukraine began receiving last month.
Defense specified that the four launchers were destroyed at different points in the Donetsk region, scene of the main fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces, after Moscow claimed victory in neighboring Lugansk a few weeks ago.
Also, on the last day more than 300 fatalities from Ukraine were recordedas Russian forces hit provisional enemy troop bases in Kramatorsk (eastern Ukraine) and Mykolaiv (southern Ukraine), according to Defense spokesman Igor Konashénkov.
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