‘We lost!’: Russia admits defeat as Ukraine makes major counter offensive gain

Ukrainian tanks attack Russian positions in south Urozhaine

Russian forces defending a major flashpoint on the frontline have admitted a rare defeat as Ukrainian officials claimed their soldiers had “entrenched” themselves in the village.

Urozhaine, near the Zaporizhzhia/Donetsk border, has been the site of heavy tank battles for weeks as Ukrainian forces looked to accelerate their counter offensive.

Hanna Mailar, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, claimed on Wednesday morning (August 16) that their forces had “released” the village from the occupying Russians.

Minutes later, the Chechen Vostok Battalion, leading the Russian forces in Urozhaine, admitted that Ukraine had “penetrated our defences”.

The liberation of Urozhaine amounts to a major breakthrough for Ukraine as they look to proceed down the spine of the Russian fortifications to the Sea of Azov.

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Russian military bloggers have claimed Ukraine has thrown thousands of troops, as well as dozens of heavy tanks, into the attack on Urozhaine over the past few days.

The spinal attack from Velyka Novosilka further north had made early gains at the start of the counter offensive but had stalled in recent weeks when Ukraine reached Staromayorskoye, across the Mokri Yaly River.

Strategically, rivers provide a natural fortification – the point at which soldiers must cross is especially vulnerable to enemy fire – and Ukraine’s attempts to recross the Mokri Yaly had proved difficult.

But over the past week, after Ukraine had pushed into the northern outskirts of Urozhaine, Russian reports detailed a rapid retreat from the village.

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Pro-Kremlin Russian military bloggers had begun referring this week to Urozhaine as a “grey zone”, a reference to territory controlled by neither side.

That in itself constituted an advance for Ukraine, since it was understood to be Russian-occupied the week previous, and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, added that pro-Kremlin sources “often describe Ukrainian-held territory as ‘grey zone’ to minimise the reported scale of Russian losses”.

Mikhail Zvinchuk, aka Rybar, an authoritative Russian milblogger with nearly 1.2 million followers on Telegram, has used the phrase “grey zone” repeatedly to describe the situation in Urozhaine while concurrently admitting that Russian forces had retreated to the southern outskirts of the village.

In his latest update, he claimed that the “fierce battle near Urozhaine continues”, though he provided no more details.

While various Russian channels debated the potential loss of Urozhaine, the Vostok Battalion that had been stationed in the village, nicknamed ”Harvest”, freely admitted on Tuesday morning (August 15) that they had “lost”.

“We lost Urozhaine, and at the same time caused such damage that part of our consciousness refuses to understand the motives of the Ukrainian command,” they wrote.

Their comments about the mass destruction of Ukraine’s advancing forces – they even used the word “slaughter” – could not be verified, though several videos purport to show Russian forces striking Ukrainian tanks around Urozhaine.

Igor Girkin, the former leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the region in which Urozhaine is located, mocked the Russian defence of the village on Wednesday morning.

The now-imprisoned former ultranationalist shared a video of Russians being targeted by an alleged Ukrainian cluster munition strike. Alongside the video, he wrote: “Russian worms on the run.”

Ukraine appears to have two main lines of attack as part of its counter offensive, both of which are advancing towards the Melitopol-Mariupol line by the Sea of Azov.

The second push further west, around Robotyne, is achieving a similar degree of success; geolocated footage from August 15 showed Ukrainian forces in the middle of the settlement after weeks of fighting.

Both groups of the Ukrainian Armed Forces hope that by advancing to the coast, they will sever the Russian land bridge, cutting off supply lines between occupied Crimea and Putin’s forces further east.

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