KHERSON, Ukraine — There was a faint tremor in the marine’s voice as he recounted the murderous fighting on the east bank of the Dnipro River, where he was wounded recently. “We were sitting in the water at night and we were shelled by everything,” the marine, Maksym, said. “My comrades were dying in front of my eyes.”
For two months, Ukraine’s Marine Corps has been spearheading an assault across the Dnipro River in the southern region of Kherson to recapture territory from Russian troops. The operation is Ukraine’s latest attempt in its flagging counteroffensive to breach Russian defenses in the south and turn the tide of the war. Soldiers and marines who have taken part in the river crossings described the offensive as brutalizing and futile, as waves of Ukrainian troops have been struck down on the river banks or in the water, even before they reach the other side.
Conditions are so difficult, a half-dozen men involved in the fighting said in interviews, that in most places, there is nowhere to dig in. The first approaches tend to be marshy islands threaded with rivulets or meadows that have become a quagmire of mud and bomb craters filled with water. The soldiers and marines gave only their first names or asked for anonymity for security reasons, and commanders declined almost all media requests to visit military units in the Kherson region. Several soldiers and marines spoke to journalists out of concern about the high casualties and what they said were overly optimistic accounts from officials about the progress of the offensive.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that it was not immediately possible to comment on the soldiers’ accusations but that it would provide a response in due course.
Some of the heaviest fighting has been in the village of Krynky, on the east bank 20 miles upriver from Kherson city, where Ukrainian troops seized a narrow strip of fishermen’s houses — the only place where they managed to establish a toehold. But footage of the area, livestreamed from a drone and seen by The New York Times, verified soldiers’ accounts of heavy Russian airstrikes that have destroyed the houses and turned the river bank into a mass of mud and splintered trees. Fresh troops arriving on the east bank have to step on soldiers’ bodies that lie tangled in the churned mud, said Oleksiy, an experienced soldier who fought in Krynky in October and has since crossed multiple times to help evacuate the wounded.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/16/world/europe/ukraine-kherson-river-russia.html
Also available on Yahoo in case the NYT link goes dark.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukrainian-marines-suicide-mission-crossing-153256212.html
Comment: I’m glad to see this probably accurate account of what it is like in the Dnipro River bridgeheads. The authorities in Kyiv remain tight lipped about this front, but said they would respond to this report. I’m curious to see what they have to say. I’m hoping that they don’t try to say that the Dnipro crossings are anything other than a real son of a bitch. That’s what we hear from the Russian warbloggers about conditions on their side. I can’t imagine it’s much better on the Ukrainian side.
When the first crossings started, they appeared to be no more than raids. Even now there are now only an estimated 250 to 300 Ukrainian Marines on the left bank. My guess is that those Marine Brigades are continually feeding troops into the lines for both rotation and replacements. The situation reminds me of the Cyborgs of Donetsk Airport in 2014 to 2015. Those Marines are surely taking a beating, but they’re still there. They’re some tough bastards.
In other news from this front, the newly-formed 104th Guards Airborne Division made a mighty effort to throw the Ukrainians out of Krynky and back into the river. British Intelligence assessed that the 104th “highly likely suffered exceptionally heavy losses and failed to achieve its objectives during its combat debut in Kherson Oblast.” The Rooskies must have taken a real ass whooping since those Russian warbloggers are now calling for the resignation of Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky.
TTG
When the dam burst, I thought the Ukrainians couldn’t attack and the Russians couldn’t defend themselves. However, the Ukrainians on the west bank of the river had the advantage of being higher than the Russians. This difference in height is the result of the Coriolis force on rivers running north-south. This is clearly visible at Stalingrad on the Volga, but less pronounced on the Dnieper.
This is exactly what happens. The Ukrainians, having come down from their height, are dragging themselves through the mud just like the Russians.
The Russians win if they can confine the Ukr to their mud. The Ukr can’t win without a serious, well-protected logistics operation across the river.
Hence the inconclusive attrition operations in relation to the rest of the front.
On the diagram, in the center of the M14, CS gas.
I was very worried about this gas, a possible war crime. Then I remembered that this gas is a respiratory and eye irritant. In short, it’s a tear gas, not a combat gas.
I doubt that a single drone could carry much of it. To be effective, you’d need a veritable armada of drones. I doubt it. The Russians don’t have enough drones to waste potential that would be much better used with grenades or explosives.
I wonder how the authors identified this gas? from witnesses-victims? So it’s anecdotal, Rushki-style nastiness.
d74,
As you said, CS is just an irritant, no big deal. It’s used on the streets of the US. As you also noted, it seems like the waste of a drone.
Thx for clarification on CS gas.
I was immediately suspicious of that reporting, as likely psyops (a *big* part of the Ukraine War). It’s easy to conflate “CS” with “CX”, a real war-crime gas.
So, it’s quite possible that this is pure propaganda. OTOH, it’s also possible that Russia wasted a drone just to remind the Ukrainian Marines that they need to bring gas masks when they cross the Dniepr, making their logistics nightmare just a little bit worse (and their kit a bit bulkier).
UK MoD: …”highly likely suffered exceptionally heavy losses and failed to achieve its objectives during its combat debut in Kherson Oblast”…
The insertion of the weasel-words “highly likely” before the phrase “suffered exceptionally heavy losses” suggests to me that the UK MoD is spreading Chinese Whispers.
Is a British “highly likely” the same thing as an American three-letter-agency’s “with high confidence”, or is it just a different way of saying “or so we were told”?
TTG,
I see nothing in your account yet on the volcanic coincidence of eruption in Iceland at the same time that Sec Def Lloyd Austin announces, in Israel:
“Iran is raising tensions by continuing to support terrorist groups and malicious attacks by these Iranian proxies who threaten the region and risk a broader conflict.” In a backhanded threat, Austin said, “Of course, the United States does not seek war. And we urgently call on Iran to take steps to de-escalate.”
During his visit to Israel, Austin reaffirmed the US’s unlimited support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. “I’m here with a clear message,” Austin said. “America’s support for Israel’s security is unshakable.” He added, “Hamas committed atrocities during its attack on Israel. It is a continuation of its professed goals: the killing of Jews and the elimination of the Jewish state. No country should tolerate such a danger.”
He concluded, “Israel has every right to defend itself against a fanatical terrorist group whose stated purpose is to murder Jews and eradicate the Jewish state. … So make no mistake, Hamas should never again be able to project terror from Gaza into the sovereign state of Israel.”
Source https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/12/19/rluj-d19.html
As mentioned yesterday this sounds diametrically opposite to the sandwich meat on wonder bread with ketchup and pickle served to us by the usual gang of NYTimes etc.
I realize it might sound far fetched to mention the volcano regarding the mideast or other theatres. And not because the old maniac Yahweh was originally the volcano deity of Zipporah’s father Jethro, who took over the administration of Justice for Moses after he married her, after meeting her at the well, when on the run from killing the Egyptian. But Lloyd Austin is in the red sea area, isn’t he? Jethro spells jet thro or jet hro. Everything is interesting and interesting.
D74 – Interesting about effects of the Coriolus force on riverbanks. Is that the same for the Mississippi? And what about south of the equator? The Seversky Donets River also has bluffs on the right (west) bank and lots of swampy areas on the other side. Which is probably why Ukro Colonel Arty Green’s interview recently suggested a potential adjustment of defensive lines to that river and the Oskil River if things get worse on the Kupiansk-Svatove-Kreminna Front in the east.
I’ve also seen the Russian Telegram milblogger accounts TTG mentions about the many Russkii casualties there in regiments of the 104th Airborne. But I suspect the Ukrainian plan is not to establish bridgeheads there for a major river crossing. Instead they only planned these crossings for the following reasons:
* to divert Russki forces from defending further east in Zaporizhzhia Oblast;
* to push Russian artillery back out of 122 & 152 range of striking on Kherson and other towns and cities on the west bank;
* and they also want to cut the roads that resupply Russki forces on the Kinburn Peninsula & Spit that Russia uses to coordinate missile attacks on Odesa, Mykolaiv, Ochakiv, etc.
But if conditions improve they could use it as an opportunity to expand those footholds to send over more troops and retake Nova Kakhovka, or make feints southeast towards Perekop on the isthmus to Crimea or east towards Melitopol. Or maybe just to make Gerasimov think they might.
Lieth,
I’ve seen some Russian mil-bloggers post IR night FPV videos recently of the Russians taking out the boats the Marines are using to cross the river, they are bragging the good old days of the Ukrainians owning the night are coming to an end, and losing the cover of darkness will be the end of these ops. Time will tell.
I wonder if the Ukrainians had a plan to drain the river when the deep freezes come. They control the dam, and conceivably the wet silt would freeze up hard as a Chinese crossword puzzle pretty quick, opening an extremely broad and lightly defended front. However the combination of low funding and the resultant lack of supply would make offensive ops this winter unlikely. It’s probably about keeping Russian assets fixed, and at the extreme end of their logistical train.
Mark Logan –
If you are speaking of the Kakhovka Dam, last I heard it was still under Russian control and still breached and incapable of operation. It would be great if it was under Ukrainian control again. Could you please provide your source that claims it is?
Also sources for your IR night FPV videos?
There are plenty of videos of Russkii tanks, and other mil equipment being destroyed near Krynky or elsewhere near the Left Bank. Here are a few examples:
https://twitter.com/albafella1/status/1737456967357005831
https://twitter.com/front_ukrainian/status/1737487451952742528
https://twitter.com/tungphat1/status/1736258288894038023
Many more out there on Twitter and Telegram: https://twitter.com/search?q=krynky&src=recent_search_click
Leith,
Not the destroyed dam, the five remaining dams up river from there are all under Ukrainian control. They should have the combined reservoir capacities during a serious freeze to withhold all water for an extended period.
I’ll search around for the vids when I have time, but multiple Russian mil bloggers have been on the IR issue, particularly Military Summary.
Mark Logan –
I doubt seriously that Ukraine will withhold all water for an extended period at the upriver dams anytime soon. Those dams produce hydroelectric power, which is sorely in need in Ukraine this winter. Especially considering Putin’s shenanigans at the Zaporizhzhiya Nuclear Power Plant. Plus Iranian drones attacking power substations.
Maybe next summer?
As for night-time drones with thermal videocam capability, Ukraine has been using them for well over a year.
On Khrinky, weeks back. It’s still true, I think.
“The lodgements are supported by artillery and tank fire from across the river. The ground there is higher which even these days apparently still gives an advantage. The numbers of men thus supported is uncertain; one sees figures ranging from a few dozen to a few hundred. A doomed enterprise in itself, its value is said to lie in drawing Russian troops away from other areas.
“It also shows that although the Kiev forces are overall falling apart, there are still plenty of courageous and determined men to carry on the fight. That shattered army still has teeth. Presumably, given that Washington’s at a loss, and Kiev unable to do more than play out the last days in the bunker, the carnage will continue until those teeth are drawn.”
Three Marine Brigades gone since them, among the best of the Ukrainian soldiery, and a fourth being chewed up right now. In microcosm this PR occupation of the left bank of the Dnieper shows the tragedy of this unnecessary war.
“PR occupation” because it’s of no military significance. It’s needed to give the illusion to the Ukrainian and Western publics that there’s some hope of some sort of victory for the Kiev forces. To keep the show running just that bit longer.
It could be that it’s being kept going because of inertia – no one cares to issue countermanding orders given that those orders would mean admitting to failure. It could even be a direct result of the Milley/Cavoli/Radakin conference with Zaluzhnyi in which Zaluzhnyi was given his marching orders. Or it could be a leftover from the table top exercises that NATO conducted before ordering the ill-fated “counter offensive”.
Could be any of those things or a mixture. What it means though is that the Ukrainians are condemned to more slaughter merely in order to get terms worse than they could have got a year and more ago. And terms far worse than they could have got by going with Minsk 2. Arestovich is the least credible of witnesses but when he states in terms that Ukraine backed the wrong horse he is dead right.
Arestovich is now said to be safe in New York so can say what he pleases, but back in Kiev there’s real bitterness too. The West pushed them on and promised to support them “as long as it takes” and now it’s ditching them. Isn’t that what our proxies always find in the end? That they’ve backed the wrong horse and always end up paying for it? A minimum of half a million dead or maimed and all they have to show for it is the loss of a country.
That’s looking at it from their point of view. My own view is that for Ukraine that loss is better than being dominated by a vicious and corrupt regime that was being used as a battering ram by the West. But you can admire courage while deploring the cause; and that courage, resourcefulness and sheer grit shown by the bulk of those soldiers fighting for Kiev can only be described as admirable almost past belief.
Admirable, but a most cruel sacrifice of good men. Keeping this carnival of death running another year in order to improve the electoral chances of an American President is, I believe, an impracticable aim. But that it’s an aim at all, that needs such pointless sacrifice for its achievement, shows clearly how unfit to run a war the politicians in Washington and Berlin/Brussels are.
For the Americans, Biden will be the man who lost Ukraine, as he is – somewhat unfairly – the man who lost Afghanistan. For the Europeans Scholz and UvdL will represent the same. But for the Ukrainians, all three and those around them will simply be the people who closed their eyes to needless death and suffering, and in the end then sold them out for nothing.
EO,
Those three Marine Brigades are not gone, but they’ve been feeding replacements and reinforcements into the bridgeheads for the last several months. the high end of Ukrainians on the left bank is now 300. So it’s a small number of infantry engaged at any one time against a much larger Russian force. Still, the Russians can’t budge them. I’ve read the Ukrainians have put some heavy EW and drone assets on that front and that has paid off.
The Ukrainian cause is to avoid being dominated by the vicious and corrupt regime in Moscow. They are fighting for their survival. It’s the same struggle that Lithuanians fought and died for until 1952. Putin continues to pour Russians into Ukraine in a cruel sacrifice to make Ukraine his. After all this sacrifice, he is determined not to be the one who lost Ukraine. He could end this if he could get past his obsession. I believe he could end this and still survive as the the leader of Russia. His hold on the Russian mind is that strong.
Is this war about this war, or is it about 1952? Are you just another bitter emigre?
drifter,
Both are/were about resistance to Kremlin invasion.
I had been led to understand that the Lithuanians helped kill the Jews in WWII.
drifter,
Some did. Some protected them. Some collaborated with the Kremlin and a lot killed as many invaders as they could.
TTG, it seems you are in an irregular relationship as the pope might say. Mass killing, but still wanting to be accepted as OK.
drifter,
I, myself, haven’t killed any bolsheviki, nor ever had the opportunity to do so, but a number of my relatives have and were quite proud of it. My adherence to some of my ancestors animistic old ways may put me in more of an irregular relationship with the Pope than my approval of my family’s killing of the bolsheviki.
Drifter –
Some Russians also helped to kill Jews in WW2.
So y’all tacitly admitting your relatives helped kill the Jews.
drifter,
They killed NKVD and KGB troops and some regular Soviet troops. Some of them might have been Jewish, but they were all invaders.
drifter,
100,000 Lithuanian Jews were murdered in Lithuania, mostly by Lithuanians who needed no help or encouragement from the Germans. In the other Baltic states it was equally as bad though the numbers may not have been quite as high – and most of that killing was done before (yes before) the Wansee conference. One of the most interesting encounters I ever had in my life was with a young Chicago resident who was Lithuanian on both sides of his family, a brilliant, very handsome, fit and very socially adept. It was in 1982 or so. I had been hornswoggled into driving three twirpy east coast college students from Bennington from NYCity to points west, I exited near Denver. They were all Jewish and I am half Jewish on my father’s side. They were all rich kids who knew nothing about antisemitism, I wasn’t and did. And was older by 12 years.
The Lithuanian kid (young man) had found us out while we were staying with graduate students in a big house near the U of Chicago, and he wanted to talk and was willing to show us around. I took him up on it. He was really really troubled about his parents and the segment of the Lithuanian community of which, according to his account, they were leaders. He needed the get something off his chest, so it seemed, but it’s possible he was subtlt trying to warn me and my companions. His mom and dad were eminences in the old country – doctors, at least his dad was. They were ardent Nazis. He apparently couldn’t stand it because it was so extreme and he loves them because they were his parents. He said that the Chicago authorities allowed those people much leeway in educational facilities, including the use of Swastika flags in some school rooms. He volunteered to show me but I didn’t take him up on it. I found him entirely credible on a person to person basis, he seemed to intuitively understand that I was a teacher who talked to people his age every day – it was fairly obvious given the college setting and my traveling companions. I believed the Nazi stuff 100% and still do, at the time due to my knowledge through the media of American Nazi Party marches through the Chicago suburbs of Skokie and elsewhere, and I had read several very good books on WW2, including ones on Treblinka and Aushwitz. The Baltic mass murders of Jews was no secret at all.
Anyway, the kid was quite troubled over it, he found it appalling that the people he loved the most in life, leaders including a doctor, were devotees of a cult of racist genocide. Near the end of the third day of conversation with him though, he did allow as how, unfortunately, it was indeed true that those blond peoples from his parent’s area – Baltics and Germany – were indeed superior people to the rest of the human race. Physically it was evident to look at them and test their fitness, and intellectually he cited numerous studies which proved it. In that last I maybe heard the voice of his highly educated father, but that’s just informed guesswork. I think I may have quibbled just a bit with that last observation of his while acknowledging how impressive were the Germans I became acquainted with ten years earlier while traveling. He was a bit annoyed that people don’t accept something so proven and obvious.
At the time I found his story quite disturbing. Having witnessed the Israelis in action now and over the course of the interceding 40+ years, I no longer do. If someone gunned down several hundred thousand of them it wouldn’t surprise me. It would be awful, and nauseating, and a miserable waste of life but not at all surprising or entirely undeserved in the sense of being without an element of cruel, gruesome, and ancient justice.
100,000 Lithuanian Jews were murdered in Lithuania, mostly by Lithuanians who needed no help or encouragement from the Germans.
That’s nonsense, of course, F&L, the way you put it. And it feels, you know.
Besides: Colorful tale, slightly enhanced for effect? 😉 …
Memory does not always serve me well either, but it feels that Frank Collin and his band of merry brothers never marched through Skokie. …
But interesting piece of history, Collin’s triggers my old late friend’s article about Lawrence Auster or Horowitz another former liberal revolutionary mugged by reality.
https://undercoverblackman.blogspot.com/2007/05/auster-gets-megaphone-from-david.html
Irony alert/Question: Are half Jews more likely to become self-hating than ones with a Jewish mother, never mind the other half?
Collin’s history triggers
or Collin triggers …
I should have decided how to put it.
Leander,
[paragraph deleted by TTG]
TTG note: Come on F&L. You know better than to go off like that. You’re witty, imaginative and quite prolific so I’m sure you can get your point across without such blatant personal attacks. Have a cup of tea or a nice hot cocoa before you hit the send button.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Lithuania
The Holocaust in Lithuania resulted in the near total destruction of Lithuanian (Litvaks) and Polish Jews,[a] living in Generalbezirk Litauen of Reichskommissariat Ostland within the Nazi-controlled Lithuanian SSR. Out of approximately 208,000–210,000 Jews, an estimated 190,000–195,000 were murdered before the end of World War II, most of them between June and December 1941. More than 95% of Lithuania’s Jewish population was massacred over the three-year German occupation – a more complete destruction than befell any other country affected by the Holocaust.[1] Historians attribute this to the massive collaboration in the genocide by the non-Jewish local paramilitaries, though the reasons for this collaboration are still debated.[2][3][4][5] The Holocaust resulted in the largest-ever loss of life in so short a period of time in the history of Lithuania.[5]
F&L,
During the first Soviet occupation of Lithuania, 7,000 Jews were deported along with 10,000 other Lithuanians. During the Nazi occupation you know what happened to the Jews at the hands of the Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators. The fact that many Lithuanians willingly collaborated against their Jewish countrymen is inexcusable and shameful. Maybe it was deeply rooted antisemitism. Maybe it was resentment that so many Jews collaborated with the Soviets during the first occupation. Of course they preferred the Soviet occupation to the very much worse Nazi occupation that was to come. It was absolutely wrong to blame the Lithuanian Jews for that preference. It boils down to knee jerk antisemitism.
A book came out a couple of years ago about a hero of the Lithuanian resistance against the Soviets who turned out to have willingly aided the Nazis in the extermination of Lithuanian Jews. His grand daughter did the research and wrote the book. Brave woman.
https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/insights/my-grandfather-national-hero-lithuania-and-war-criminal
TTG, we had an exchange about the topic, around the time I was quite shocked about a Lithuanian movie I watched: The heroic fight against the Soviets. Not a trace of the Nazis, not a trace of the Jews. Maybe you remember? The Forest Brothers. …
I don’t want to return to the topic, really. Should have kept my fingers off the keyboard. I simply
dislike these nationalist tendencies. These ambiguous national heroes. And yes, the EU had to remind the Baltic States to respect its Russian minorities. The trends were easy to notice at times.
******
And ok, maybe that curious self-aware superior Lithuanian descendant of displaced parents – once upon a time – really existed. Who am I to tell/judge. Sorry F & L. But you know what? That’s how we Leanderthals are.
TTG – After I had submitted that comment I saw with some unease an entirely unjustified ad hominem attack on you. With your impeccable sense of fairness you let that ad hominem attack through but I don’t want to be associated with it. So maybe the ins and outs of the conflict as seen by this Outsider could be left for another time.
Also to be left for another time is the hint you dropped on my chimney flue. I shall take it to heart. In the old days they didn’t bother much with sweeping chimneys round my way, not from what I’ve been told. You just fired a shogun up them and job done. A relative tried a more advanced version of the technique only recently.
He had a blocked flue so scampered up on the roof and ran a bit of old engine oil down the chimney. That didn’t answer so he followed up with diesel. Still no result, so he tried with a pint or two of petrol, or gasoline as I believe the rebellious colonists now term it.
That worked remarkably well. He said the effect was very like a rocket going off. But he didn’t have much time to admire the show. The dislodged clinker fell down into the steel pipe coming out of the stove and there burned the pipe red hot. Thin steel, not the old cast iron, so he had to spend the next half hour or so dashing water over it in case it split and the burning clinker got into the house.
Your method of getting rid of the tar looks, to be honest, rather less interesting. But it gets SWMBO’s vote (“I think that sounds rather more sensible” was the word from on high) so I shall probably adopt it when the time comes.