Ukrainian counter-offensive has failed to even make it through Russian defense security zone. Can't even make it to the actual line.
Who thought this was a good idea to send those troops in with no chance? WaPo is now finally telling some of the grim reality.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... h-donetsk/
The men of Ukraine’s 37th Brigade were freshly trained and armed with Western-supplied weapons, tasked with an initial push through Russian-occupied territory in the early days of a long-awaited counteroffensive.
They would pay a heavy price.
Within 20 minutes of their June 5 advance south of Velyka Novosilka, in the southeast Donetsk region, mortars exploded all around them, soldiers said. A 30-year-old soldier known as Lumberjack saw two of the men in his vehicle bleeding heavily; one lost an arm as he cried out for his family. Lumberjack crawled into a crater, but the shrapnel from a mortar went through the soil and pierced his shoulder.
“We were left there in the field, without tanks or heavy armor,” said Lumberjack, who spoke to The Washington Post on the condition that he be identified only by his call sign because he was not authorized to discuss the battle. “We were shelled with mortars from three sides. We couldn’t do anything.”
There were fewer than 50 men in the unit, he said, and 30 did not return — they were killed, wounded or captured by the enemy. Five of the unit’s armored vehicles were destroyed within the first hour.