The Ukrainian forces that have taken the initiative since August 29 have managed to break the opponent’s defense lines and to win back several localities
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It is an ordinary Ukrainian village, that is to say, in these war times, strong depopulated and very militarized. In the center, a coffee, still surprisingly open when it is only 10 kilometers from one of the most violent fronts in the country, welcomes the soldiers who rest a few hours. They buy vitamin drinks, protein cereal bars, cigarettes. Many leave quickly. Some take the time to drink a coffee at the two tables installed on the terrace, while the sound of the cannons rumbles a few kilometers, that Ukrainian planes regularly fly over the area and that a helicopter arrives in the plump to evacuate the wounded from a country hospital.
The village of B. is at the heart of the Ukrainian counter-offensive carried out since August 29 against the Moscow army in the Kherson region, in southern Ukraine. It is a rear base for the troops which have managed to break the Russian defense lines and to reconquer several villages – the places and the interlocutors are covered by anonymity, the Ukrainian staff who officially prohibited journalists to circulate near of the battlefield and the soldiers to communicate with them.
At the end of a week of offensive, Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, announced on Monday September 5, that “the Ukrainian flag is coming back where it must be”, specifying, after a meeting with The staff, which “the information [was] good”. Moscow announces that the counter-offensive has already failed.
v., An officer of a combat unit who accepts Brief regularly Le Monde on the evolution of the battle, believes that “the Russians have put a lot of means, village by village, in the fortification of their defenses “, in a region where they intended to organize” self -determination referendums “soon in order to legalize the military occupation. At the same time, or almost, an official of Kherson, Kirill Stremoussov, indicated on Russian television that, “because of the events of the moment”, the organization of such a ballot was going to mark “a break”. “In almost every village, continues V., we face tanks, artillery, mines fields.” After the first trench, the progression is necessarily very slow.
“In each village, the Russians fight”
“We have the impression of having created a feeling of panic at two levels in the Russian army: in the very first line, where soldiers are considered to be gunshot and often run away without fighting; And, according to our military intelligence services, in the staffs, where the officers are surprised by our in-depth attacks and do not understand our battle plans, “said the officer.
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