In Ukraine, the army is in difficulty in the east of the country, where Russian forces have been concentrating their attacks for several days. In the Koupiansk and Lyman region, the soldiers no longer hide it: resisting becomes difficult.
On a front of barely 150 kilometers, Russia is mobilizing as many soldiers as it did in Afghanistan. On Wednesday July 19, the Russian army claimed to have advanced more than a kilometer during “offensive operations“north of the city of Kupyansk in northeastern Ukraine and claimed the capture of a railway station.”During the day, the advance of Russian units amounted to more than a kilometer in depth and up to two kilometers along the front. Units captured Molchanovo station“, less than 20 km north of Kupiansk, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
>> War in Ukraine: “In one day, with dead and wounded, we can advance 400 meters”, wounded soldiers testify to the violence of the counter-offensive
And for good reason, says Serhiy Cherevaty, spokesperson for the armed forces for eastern Ukraine: Moscow is concentrating its forces. “They have more than 100,000 men, about 900 tanks, 550 artillery guns, 370 multiple rocket launchers! We are more successful, we are better prepared, we are more motivated, but in front of us, there is there are forces in very large quantities”.
Soldiers who lack shells and live “hell”
In Lyman, the special forces battalion commanded by Zahar is on the front line against the Russians. “Since they made their rotations at the start of the summer, they have definitely stepped up their assaults. This month, it’s almost every day, like darts…”
The soldier shows us some kind of steel tips equipped with fins that he picked up on the ground: these are murderous darts already used in Boutcha. A single shell can expel nearly 10,000. “We don’t have shells like that. We lack shells even for our long-range artillery. Our production plants were partially destroyed after 2014.”
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Shortages that lead to difficult situations. “The guys went through hell. I don’t know how they held up. I don’t know how we held up,” adds Zahar.
Was the counter-offensive a failure?
Andrei, from the same battalion, still wants to believe it.“Of course we have losses, we don’t hide it. But the enemy has a lot more than us. In our area of operation, it’s 1 to 10.”
Everyone talks about the counter-offensive. “We try here and there, in different places, we look for a weak point. For me it hasn’t started yet.” The men fighting on the Lyman front agree on this point: despite the difficulties, it is far too early to say that the Ukrainian counter-offensive is a failure.
The difficult resistance of the Ukrainian soldiers – Isabelle Labeyrie and Gilles Gallinaro