“Finally, the Russians are like us, they learn to make war…”observes, with a mischievous eye, while drinking a café latte, Corporal K., a soldier in an assault infantry company of the 116e mechanized brigade, which is fighting on the Orikhiv front.
“Since their defeats at Izium and Kherson, the Russians have imitated us. They become more creativesays L., a soldier in an intelligence unit of the 35e marine infantry brigade, which on the Velyka Novossilka front advanced to the right (west) bank of the Mokri Ialy river. “With drones as with mines, the Russians are becoming ingenious”also thinks D. who, at the head of a reconnaissance and combat commando of the National Guard, is carrying out operations on the Mala Tokmachka front.
Along the frontline of the Kyiv army’s counter-offensive, from Donetsk province to Zaporizhia province in southern Ukraine, the dozen or so unit commanders or intelligence officers soldiers encountered during the first ten days of the operation launched on June 4 is unanimous. All describe a Russian army significantly better prepared to hold the territories it occupies in the country than during the 2022 Ukrainian counter-offensives in the provinces of Kherson and Kharkiv.
“They are more mobile, more flexible”
“You can see the difference. We learn to fight, and they learn too.says “Turist”, the commander of the 98e battalion of the 108e Territorial Defense Brigade. “Before, the Russians attacked like in the military manuals”he says, that is, in a frontal manner and without managing to surprise the enemy, even when they managed to defeat him thanks to their firepower, as in Mariupol, Sievierodonetsk and Lyssytchansk, or recently in Bakhmout. “Now they are more mobile, more flexible. »
D. – who speaks anonymously, like all the intelligence officers not authorized to comment on the operations in progress – is especially struck by the fact that the Russian army, defeated last year in particular because of the capacity of the Ukrainian forces to gather in-depth intelligence through undercover partisans and drones, has now, “even without the planes and helicopters that it uses little, a new air superiority thanks to drones”. “They have thousands of them, everywhere. Armed drones, drone-kamikazes…”he said.
The rise in technological power and Russian ingenuity can also be seen, according to the Ukrainian soldier, for example with “anti-personnel mines which have no metallic element and thwart our detectors” Or “anti-tank mines which, thanks to a sophisticated delay system, only explode once loaded into our vehicles and when we reach 30 km/hour”.
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