As usual, Ukraine’s deputy Head of Presidential Office Aleksey Arestovych went live today to discuss the situation in Ukraine with exiled Russian journalist Mark Feygin. You can find the summary of the discussion, including the situation on the frontline in addition to other topics such as replacement of the Donbas commander Dvornikov, in the transcript below.
Frontline situation.
- Northern border of Ukraine – continued shelling and aviation strikes by the Russians at the border villages of Sumy and Chernihiv Oblasts with the same objective to prevent Ukraine from transferring away troops.
- Kharkiv direction – minor tactical movements and artillery exchanges, nothing serious happening.
- Izyum-Sloviansk and Lyman-Sloviansk directions: the enemy became more active – the group attacking from Lyman is is active, attempting to advance, and got to keen to the point where they destroyed a historical church of the Sviatohirsk Lavra. They will try again to cross Siverskyi Donets to push to Sloviansk. The group attacking from Izyum is getting reinforcements and regrouping. What’s interesting is that they work in turns – one group will do some moves like reconnaissance, then the other. Their objective is the same – to surround Sloviansk and cut off the Bahmut-Sloviansk highway.
- Severodonetsk – pessimistic ratio of forces is 70 to 30 in favour of the attacker, optimistic – 50 to 50. Russians are bringing new forces, rumours the fights are back in the city centre.
- Today a mass strike with Tochka-U’s was conducted on Ukrainian cities of Bahmut, Kramatorksk, Konstantinovka, Lysychansk. Rockets strikes on Sloviansk and Soledar. Helicopters struck near Lysychansk and Severodonetsk towards south-west. Su-25 hit Ustinkovka. Toretsk, New York, Vrubivka, Pokhorvskoye – strikes with Ka-52 helicopters. Also shelled Kranohorivka, Nikolskoye, Vesyoloye. Kamenska settlement near Huliaipole hit with MRL strikes. This shows two things – a) Russians are stuck due to Ukraine bringing in reserves, these attacks were aimed at striking reserve supply lines, b) Strikes along the frontline shows the enemy admits they cannot complete their objectives – they cannot break through the enemy positions and interrupt reserve supplies.
- Additionally, yesterday Odesa was attacked with rocket – most were intercepted but one landed, however with inspection it became apparent that it was one of the mid-range rockets with range of no more than 300 km, which may show Russians have to use older rockets due to a lack of stockpiled long-range rockets. This is dangerous for them as they have to come close to the border of Ukrainian anti-air defence strike range. It may not mean they are running out of rockets, but very likely they start preserving them.
- Kherson – Ukrainian forces are holding onto the foothold, Russians are trying to knock them out, artillery exchanges.
Other topics.
- M142 HIMARS MRL system are close – the delivery and staff training is a question of 2-3 weeks, but they are certainly not being used yet – otherwise it would have been known to the wide public.
- Russian General Dvornikov replaced by some General Zhydko who commanded previously in the Izyum direction. He is a professional “zampolit” and a deputy Minister of Defence in political efforts – this could point at poor morale condition of the Russian troops as he is someone who could potentially better inspire them to fight. Gen. Dvornikov most likely replaced due to a lack of progress in the operation – main successes include capture of Izyum and Popasna, which is far from satisfactory. Once again – Bahmut-Lysychansk highway is not captured, Sloviansk is not even reached, Severodonetsk is not captured, while Russian losses are counting to 7,000.
- What can we see in the seventh sanctions package? Success of Putin depends on extra profits from selling energy resources. The sixth package nearly totally resolved the question of oil – the seventh package will do the same with gas. Gas is more complicated however due to Europe’s significant dependency on it. This will take a while, it will be difficult, but it will happen. At the moment, Putin still has way to go around sanctions, feed the war and feed more or less decent socio-economic situation in Russia.
- It appears that the 4-step plan suggested by Italian PM has not died down yet – CNN revealed the discussions regarding the peace plan continue, perhaps even without Ukraine. However, Ukraine will not be blackmailed. Ukraine, while depending on the West in many ways, is not going bow down to the people responsible for Bucha and Mariupol. And regardless of Western military help Russia will not achieve the victory it intended – Ukraine’s solo ventures will at least will result in a stalemate and a positional war resembling the war of the past seven years. There will be no Minsk-3, Ukraine pursues a defeat of the Putin’s regime.
